(Re)storying Okinawa: Mapping Military Waste

About

“The runway that continues to run sticky over your foreheads, thoughts and feet, the area with the golf course, plastered with stars all over it … do you know this pitiful map?”—Kishaba Jun, “Pitiful Map”1

“(Re)storying Okinawa: Mapping Military Waste” aims to visualize the histories and sites of military waste in the Lūchū islands/Okinawa. Using mapping technologies, archival sources, place-based fieldwork, and community-generated data, the map makes visible the legacies of military waste in what some have called the “hidden empire” of the United States.2 

Okinawa bears the costs of the US occupation and militarization, which has been ongoing since World War II. After World War II, Okinawa was called the “Junk Heap of the Pacific,” a mindset of the US military that justified the pollution of Okinawa’s environment and the irresponsible disposal of military waste. The pollution of public waters, forever chemicals such as PFAS in the groundwater and soil, the persistent threat of unexploded ordnances (UXOs), and other forms of military waste threaten livability for Okinawan human and non-human lives. This militarization of Okinawa is the result of the “dual colonialism” of the US-Japan Peace Treaty and its later iteration with the US-Japan Mutual Security Agreement.3 Due to the Status of Forces Agreement between the United States and Japan, the United States is absolved of bearing the cost and responsibility for environmental cleanup. While the government of Japan foots some of the cost, the overwhelming burden of the bases and the various costs (economic, material, human, and non-human, cleanup) fall heavily on Okinawans. The formerly independent Lūchū/Ryūkyū kingdom, known today as the Okinawa Prefecture of Japan, is forced to host 70% of US military bases in Japan, despite being merely 0.6% of Japanese national territory.4

“(Re)storying Okinawa” insists our islands are more than a junk heap of the Pacific, more than dumping grounds for military waste. By mapping military waste incidents and “(re)storying Okinawa,” this project draws on methods of digital mapping and storytelling to expose the legacies of militarization in Okinawa. As Okinawan author Kishaba Jun once asked, “The runway that continues to run sticky over your foreheads, thoughts and feet, the area with the golf course, plastered with stars all over it, is the barracks of the monster that burned the Korean youth and the wheat fields yesterday. … Wandering people, people who want to know the truth, people who are hungry for ‘freedom,’ we swore we would never fight, mothers, do you know this pitiful map?” The “pitiful map” that Kishaba describes is a land transformed by militarization, ongoing occupation, and their aftermaths.

Yet the story of military waste is only one story about Okinawa. The mapping methods used here follow Mishuana Goeman’s (Tonawanda Band of Seneca) concept of “(re)mapping” as a way to counter colonial cartographies and revitalize Indigenous relations to land through storytelling.5 CHamoru poet, scholar, and activist Craig Santos Perez explains of storytelling, stating, “While maps can locate, chart, and represent (and through this representation tell an abstracted story), they never show us the human voices of a place.”6 

Unexploded ordnances, bullets, mortar shells, radioactive substances, and other forms of waste persist in Okinawan lands and waters. By tracking incidents of military waste, (Re)storying Okinawa highlights the disproportionate impact on the Okinawan people, non-human lives, and the environment. For students, researchers, and community members in the United States, the map is a tool that makes visible the material, human, and environmental costs of the “hidden empire” of the US military. For Okinawans, the map is a living archive to contribute their stories and have their voices heard. In the long run, it is the hope that the map will become a resource and database in building a case for amendments to Article IV of the Status of Forces Agreement and working toward demilitarization. 


“(Re)storying Okinawa” centers Okinawan voices of our islands, through stories: news reports, literature, memory, and yuntaku. Even while tracking the proliferation of military waste across Okinawa’s islands,

References

  1. Kishaba Jun, “A poem of resistance unyielding to US censorship: “Occupation control” with the strengthening of the bases, even now Kishaba Chojun’s “Cultural activities under oppression,” Ryukyu Shimpo, April 27, 2021 [America kenetsu kussezu ni teiko no uta kichi kyōka de ‘senryō shihai’, ima mo Kishaba Chōjun ‘asseika no bunka katsudō], https://ryukyushimpo.jp/news/entry-1312243.html. ↩︎
  2. Daniel Immerwahr, How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States (New York: Picador, 2019).  ↩︎
  3. Annmaria Shimabuku, “Transpacific Colonialism: An Intimate View of Transnational Activism in Okinawa,” CR: The New Centennial Review 12 (1), 131-158. ↩︎
  4. Okinawa Prefectural Government. “What Okinawa Wants You to Understand about the U.S. Military Bases,” March 8, 2018, https://dc-office.org/post/828. ↩︎
  5. Mishuana Goeman, Mark My Words: Native Women Mapping Our Nations (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2013). ↩︎
  6. Craig Santos Perez, “The Page Transformed: A Conversation with Craig Santos Perez,” Lantern Review, March 12, 2010, ​​​​https://www.lanternreview.com/blog/2010/03/12/the-page-transformed-a-conversation-with-craig-santos-perez/. ↩︎