![]() | Embodying Belonging: Racializing Okinawan Diaspora in Bolivia and Japan Subjects: Ryukyuans -- Race identity -- Bolivia -- Colonia Okinawa; Bolivians -- Race identity -- Japan -- Yokohama-shi; Immigrants -- Bolivia -- Colonia Okinawa -- Social conditions; Children of immigrants -- Bolivia -- Colonia Okinawa -- Social conditions; Return; Embodying Belonging is the first full-length study of a Okinawan diasporic community in South America and Japan. Under extraordinary conditions throughout the twentieth century (Imperial Japanese rule, the brutal Battle of Okinawa at the end of World War II, U.S. military occupation), Okinawans left their homeland and created various diasporic communities around the world. Colonia Okinawa, a farming settlement in the tropical plains of eastern Bolivia, is one such community that was established in the 1950s under the guidance of the U.S. military administration. Although they have flourished as farm owners in Bolivia, thanks to generous support from the Japanese government since Okinawa's reversion to Japan in 1972, hundreds of Bolivian-born ethnic Okinawans have left the Colonia in the last two decades and moved to Japanese cities, such as Yokohama, to become manual laborers in construction and manufacturing industries. |
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