Loving the Occupiers-Race and Gender Relations between American GIs and Japanese Women

by Reiko Maeda

Primary advisor: Judith Smith

Secondary advisor: Shirley Tang

Graduation date: June, 2006

Abstract:

In this essay, I attempt to analyze the relationship between American GIs and Japanese women since the Occupation in the contexts of race and gender. Japanese women's liberation by American Occupation after WWII became a common assumption that underlay the claims of the successful postwar democratization of Japan by the United States. It is so common that George W. Bush uses the analogy of Japanese women's liberation as a model for that of Iraqi women to justify his current war. The image of Japanese women happily associating with American GIs is a central tenet of the common understanding. I attempt a closer look at this assumption of "mutual attraction" between them and examine what American Occupation meant for Japanese women in terms of gender and race relations, by using accounts by both GIs and Japanese women.

First, I focus on the gender aspect of the relationship between American GIs and Japanese women during the Occupation. The image of Japanese women walking down the streets holding GIs' arms has been almost as familiar as the image of General MacArthur and Japanese former emperor Hirohito. Japanese women, Japanese men, and American men came to compose a new frame of gender hierarchy after the defeat of Japan and American Occupation. American GIs' accounts often show their pride as victors and heroes, who saved Japanese women from Japanese men. Japanese men now appear as the former evil enemy and totally feminized by Western idea of masculinity. Japanese women are often orientalized in these accounts, in which they are describes as feminine, submissive, and uncivilized. In this gender hierarchy, Japanese women, on one hand, worship American males as the ones who liberated them, and on the other hand, reject Japanese males who oppressed them. Thus, the analogy of the successful liberation of Japanese women was constructed based on the orientalization of Japanese women by GIs, supported by Japanese nation's desire for democratization.

I also discuss the racial aspect of the relationship between American GIs and Japanese women. While Japanese women who married American GIs and those who had kids with GIs were considered as traitors of the Japanese race among Japanese males, war brides who were brought in the United States by GIs were unwelcome as uncivilized race or seen as sex prizes from the country they defeated. After the Occupation officially ended in 1952, the U.S. military presence continued because of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty. "American race" and "American culture" became more familiar in each community in Japan through the bases until present. Because of the prominence of African Americans in the military and the emergence of hip hop culture world wide, some Japanese women adopting American popular culture have also adopted "blackface." Those women who put dark color makeup and associate exclusively with black GIs are called Koku-jo (black woman) in local slung around U.S. military bases. When one of those women was raped by an African American GI in Okinawa in 2001, American media linked the unfavorable situation surrounding the accused and the victim with Japanese racism around the base. They assumed Jim Crow South was adopted in Okinawa through the military presence and the result of the trial would be different if the race of the accused was not black. Unlike the American media's argument, however, the race of the accused was not reported among Japanese media and the Japanese citizens including Okinawa shared the feeling that a Japanese woman was raped by an "American soldier."
Some contemporary women hang out around U.S. bases to experience "live America" through U.S. military bases and GIs. When violence happens, it provides a kind of evidence to show how the historical meaning of the Occupation continues to dominate this relationship. The blackface phenomenon may suggest a way of superficial adoption of black culture around military bases, rather than a way of identification as people of color, which was actually seen among some women in Okinawa during Vietnam War. Fifty years after the Occupation, those Japanese women's sexuality is still defined based on the relationship between occupiers and local women, which tends to be overlooked when GIs' race is emphasized around their violence by American side.

Who might be interested in reading this work?
- Those who are interested in gender and race aspects of U.S. military issue.