Island Studies Journal 16(2), Book Reviews

Drawing upon extensive historical documents and life stories of Okinawan immigrants, Hiroko Matsuda's latest volume seeks to explore the relationship between the liminal status of Okinawans and their subjectivities in reproducing discursive boundaries in the period between Japan's annexation of the Ryukyus and the beginning of US military rule in Okinawa.Matsuda revisits the concept of liminality with a focus on the Okinawan immigrants residing in colonized Taiwan, the otherwise often under-represented ethnic group.Migration was a centuries-old process and has been much explored.The substantial body of literature cited in the book reveals that the shifts of Okinawan immigrants' identities were accompanied with the rise and fall of Japan's imperial expansion.Starting from the early 1920s, Okinawans moved across borders and were constantly translating their identities between colonial and colonized cultures.Among them, Okinawans in colonized Taiwan had grappled with identity problems of their own.Traditionally, the Japanese were positioned as the superior, the Taiwanese as the inferior, and the Okinawans between the two.In this book, Matsuda challenges the radical dichotomy of the colonizer and the colonized, arguing that "Okinawans cannot be simply understood through this inflexible hierarchical structure" (p.11).On the contrary, their status, evolved from the liminal character, was socially mediated.As noted at the very beginning of the book, the Okinawans enjoyed a historical identity "less dominant and exploitative" than the Japanese (p.1).Unlike many other border studies, this book sets out to provide a more diverse interpretation of the liminal status of the Okinawan immigrants, whose "in-betweeness" of identities was magnified in the colonized context of Taiwan and during the postwar period.This book is divided into six chapters with an epilogue.Chapter 1 provides an overview of Okinawan immigrants in Taiwan, as compared to the massive migration of Okinawans across the globe.Chapter 2 reviews the history of how the commercial, social, and cultural networks were developed between Yaeyama and colonial Taiwan.It is concluded that "Yaeyama's socioeconomic transformation as well as its liminal state between the Japanese nation and the empire" (p.57) had prompted the migration of Yaeyama islanders to a "civilized Taiwan".Chapter 3 illustrates Okinawans' struggles for survival in colonized Taiwan for career and educational advancement.In Chapter 4, Matsuda takes the discussion further by acknowledging the role of "imperial schooling" in empowering Okinawans to achieve social mobility.Medical education remained a powerful impetus for the migration of Okinawans to Taiwan.Chapters 5 and 6 are devoted to in-depth analysis of Okinawans' negotiation of new identities in colonized Taiwan and in postwar Okinawa under the US temporary rule.Matsuda calls into question the common assumption that assimilation was the only way for Okinawans to advance socially in Taiwan.Alternatively, some of the second and third generations of Okinawan immigrants made conscious efforts in asserting their Okinawan pride by means of creolization.But when Okinawan repatriates from Taiwan returned to their homeland after the collapse of the Japanese Empire, they were again marginalized as the "other" due to a lack of shared colonial experiences with islanders who survived the Battle of Okinawa and the rest of the Okinawan diaspora.They were forced to

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