Ogasawara Islands: 50 Years After Reversion

Reflections on Ogasawara: Remote Islands with American and Japanese Identities

Society Culture

The Ogasawara Islands offer a human history as unique as the flora and fauna that inhabit their rustic landscape. This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the return of the islands to Japan by the United States following their occupation after World War II. Two Ogasawara islanders, a mother and son descended from early Western settlers, reflect on life on the culturally eclectic main island of Chichijima.

Caught in the Middle

The Okumura district on Chichijima was once called “Yankee Town” for its thriving Õbeikei community. Rance Ōhira, Kyōko’s son, runs a bar in the area by the same name that keeps the memories of that fading era alive. “It took three years to build the place from scratch,” he proudly exclaims, a  smoldering cigarette between his fingers.

Rance Ōhira’s bar Yankee Town is just a short walk from the town center.

Rance mixes a drink at the bar.

Born on Chichijima in 1950 while the island was under US Navy administration, Rance, who began life as Rance Washington before later taking the family name Ōhira, remembers growing up with a foot in both Japan and America. “I spoke Japanese with my mother,” he recalls, “English at school, and a mixture of both with my friends.” Although there were inconveniences, he says life during the occupation was relatively easy. “I would go hunting wild boar in the forest with my father and friends to help put a little extra meat on the table, or hop into a canoe and paddle off to catch fish. We would choose our clothes from the Sears Roebuck catalog and then have to wait and wait for them to arrive. But life was good. The US Navy provided daily necessities, handled our schooling, and even helped rebuild people’s houses.”

Rance says that for a young boy, living among Chichijima’s rich natural environment was like paradise. However, this free, idyllic lifestyle abruptly ended when he finished the seventh grade, the last year at the local school. To continue schooling, Rance and his classmates had to transfer to the US island of Guam. He remembers his excitement about leaving Chichijima for the first time, but life on Guam had its own challenges. “There were lots of things that got under my skin, like how the other students would talk down to us because we weren’t from the island.”

With no other options for education, Rance remained in the US Territory. However, when he reached the eleventh grade, the Ogasawara Islands reverted to Japan, forcing him to choose whether to remain in his current life or to return home. “It was already my plan to come back after I graduated,” he says. “But since a high school had been built on Chichijima it made more sense to spend my last year of school on the island where I could study the Japanese language in earnest.”

On June 26, 1968, the day of the handover, Rance boarded the last flight from Guam bound for the Ogasawaras.

The Prodigal Son

After graduating Rance began work, but quickly found that life on the island had changed from the free and easy days of his childhood. New Japanese-style administrative structures had displaced the old systems. The Japanese government has also declared the Ogasawara chain a national park, bringing a slew of regulations like a ban on hunting and turning large swaths of the island into specially protected reserves. Rance resented seeing the island of his boyhood slowly fade away and chose to move to the United States.

After living in the United States and serving in the US military, Rance returned to Chichijima in 1994.

Rance says his connection to American culture influenced his decision. ”When I was born, the island was under US control and all my schooling had been in English. Chichijima had become foreign to me, so I decided to head to the United States and join the military. I wore my uniform with pride—for the first few years, at any rate.”

Rance took US citizenship and lived in America for close to 20 years. All the while, though, the Ogasawara Islands continued to call to him. “I might not have consciously thought it, but I knew I would return someday. There’s no escaping the fact that I’m a Bonin Islander.”

Rance returned to Chichijima in 1994 and set about building his bar in the old Ōbeikei neighborhood to keep the Yankee Town name alive. Like his mother, he has come to embrace his islander roots.

The islands have struggled under the pressures of war and the whims of  Japanese and American governmental policies. This tumult, though, has strengthened the identities of both mother and son as proud islanders and Ōbeikei.

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the reversion of the Ogasawara Islands to Japan. Since that historic moment, the islands have continued to change as young people move in from the mainland, bringing with them new ideas about the future. As a consequence, the Ōbeikei culture is slowly being forgotten. While change is inevitable, the spirit of the Bonin Islands will live on as long as there are people like Kyōko and Rance to share the memories and history of those bygone days.

 (Originally published in Japanese on June 25, 2018. Banner photo: Rance Ōhira at his bar Yankee Town on Chichijima. All photos by Iseki Tsuyoshi unless otherwise noted.)

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