Paper short abstract:

Through oral history, I analyze how Okinawan women remembered their migration journeys to Argentina. Here I argue that these memories challenged the dominant collective memory of their communities while at the same time they shaped their relationship with Okinawa as a matter of diasporic identity.

Paper long abstract:

In Argentina, Okinawans represent roughly 70% of the whole Nikkei society. In this country, the history of Okinawan immigration started around 1908 when most immigrants arrived freely, escaping the harsh working conditions in Brazil and Peru. Decades later, Okinawan migration flows were stabilized under a system called yobiyose that allowed people already settled in Argentina to call over their relatives. Through the efforts of the people already living in the country many Okinawans left their home islands for Argentina after the Pacific War. Over the years, this form of migration shaped the collective memory of Okinawans in Argentina. In institutional discourses, the notion of yobiyose has been used to depict the bonds of solidarity and kinship as features of Okinawans’ diasporic identity. Yobiyose, as a memory narrative, intends to distinguish the Argentine Okinawan community from the neighboring settlements in South America populated by family-based agricultural migrants. The narratives of yobiyose extol the figure of the pioneer: a solitary male immigrant who, after years of hardships in foreign lands, summons his kin, rescuing them from war and economic privations. Nevertheless, these narratives largely ignore the diverse experiences of women that migrated under this system. How do Okinawan women reflect on their own migration experience? In which way do their remembrances diverge from the collective memories of the community?

Recently, narratives of pioneering immigrants have been mainly studied concerning the Japanese and American Empires. Only a few works refer to the history of Okinawan women in South America and the Nikkei identities as gendered constructions. Thus, to fully deconstruct the dominant discourses of the Japanese diaspora, we must consider the voices and experiences of different actors. To fill this gap, this paper will analyze the oral testimonies of Okinawan women and their descendants who arrived in Argentina during the postwar era. Through a combined analysis of oral history and written documents, I suggest that some of these women challenged the romanticized memory of the yobiyose system by telling a different story of uprootedness and quasi-forced migration. Stories and experiences that ultimately shaped their relationship with Okinawa and their lives in Argentina.