War, Education, and Survival: An Oral History of Wartime Education in Okinawa

• In Event: Profiles in Courage, Leadership, and Inspiration

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine one Okinawan woman’s war-time educational experiences. Building from an oral history of the author’s mother, this paper includes personal stories about formal and informal education before and after World War II. Stories given to the author as a child by and about family members (Goodall, 2005) serve as an entry point to the methodological work of this paper as well as the historical narrative of World War II. The implications of this oral history project invite one to consider the role of the “ordinary” participant in the “grand narrative” of history (Janesick, 2010) as well as the role of a family member within a “historical” narrative inheritance (Goodall, 2005).

Author

• Keith Higa, University of Central Oklahoma