American Schooling and the Negotiation of Citizenship Boundaries in Okinawa’s U.S. Military Landscape

• In Event: Global and Transnational Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 8. Rethinking nation-state/borders/migration

Abstract

This paper examines how legal, social, political, and cultural boundaries of citizenship are negotiated in everyday life within Okinawa’s U.S. military landscape through the life story of an Okinawan American woman in her eighties. It analyzes how her U.S. citizenship was claimed, questioned, and repositioned across family, school, community, and political arenas shaped by the long-standing U.S.–Okinawa relationship.

Although Okinawa comprises less than one percent of Japan’s land area, it continues to host approximately 70 percent of U.S. military facilities in Japan, reflecting both its history of U.S. administration and the continued concentration of American bases. Within this context, American schooling on U.S. military bases remains institutionally connected to the United States while operating within Japanese territory, creating a social environment in which legal affiliation and everyday belonging do not neatly align.

Drawing on in-depth life story interviews, this study traces her experiences from the postwar period to the present. As a U.S. citizen residing in Okinawa and educated on a military base, she occupied a socially and legally ambiguous position. Her American citizenship provided formal affiliation with the United States while simultaneously marking her as distinct within Okinawan society. Through everyday interactions, she encountered racialized perceptions, gendered expectations, and class-based distinctions that shaped her access to mobility, authority, and recognition. These experiences demonstrate that citizenship boundaries are not fixed legal lines but lived processes structured by historically layered U.S.–Okinawa relations.

In adulthood, her work as an interpreter in movements addressing U.S. military base issues further positioned her at the intersection of these boundaries, mediating between Okinawan communities and U.S. officials and participating in redefining the meanings of affiliation and political voice.

By foregrounding one life story, this paper shows how transnational experiences can emerge in situ, without permanent relocation. It challenges movement-centered models of migration by demonstrating how citizenship boundaries are continually reworked within spaces shaped by long-term military presence and unequal geopolitical power.

Author

• Kinuko Maehara Yamazato, University of the Ryukyus