Today was our first full day in Okinawa. We started off our day at 9:50am in the hotel lobby and headed over to our new classroom. We got a brief history lesson on Okinawa which included the Ryūkyū kingdom in the 1500s, the Satsuma clan takeover of 1609, the annexation of Okinawa by mainland Japan in 1879, the battle of Okinawa in 1945 which resulted in 1/4th of the population being killed, and finally the occupation of Okinawa by American forces until May 15th, 1972 when it was returned to being a prefecture of Japan. About 70% of Okinawa wanted to return to being a prefecture due to the economic prosperity that was happening in the mainland, but American occupational forces encouraged Okinawa to be an independent people in terms of language, culture, etc as a way to keep their loyalties from aligning too much with the mainland. Ultimately Okinawa has taken the course of assimilating into mainland Japanese culture despite discrimination from mainland Japanese in the workplace, society, etc. I got the impression from our brief history lesson that Okinawa has been constantly used as a tool by outside forces. They were and still are used as a tool for strategic advantage by the Americans, and a tool for resources by the Satsuma clan and the mainland Japanese. I was reminded of Poland's place in World War 2 as we learned about the Battle of Okinawa. Poland and Okinawa both became an unwilling battleground for a war they were swept into by other powers, with innocent civilians being caught in the crossfire, and the terrifying battles left scars upon the land and its people that may never truly heal for generations upon generations.
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