This lecture (in English) will be held Thursday November 10 at 7:00 at Lakeland University in Ryogoku, Tokyo. It will also be streamed via Zoom.

"Okinawans and U.S. Military Bases" presented by Carl Gabrielson

Roughly half of the 100,000 Americans connected to the U.S. military in Japan are located in the tiny prefecture of Okinawa. Huge portions of Okinawa are occupied by military bases, often on land that was taken forcefully from its owners. Thousands of Okinawans work on the bases, and hundreds of thousands live near them or are otherwise affected by them every day. How do Okinawans feel about these bases? This talk will address common misconceptions about Okinawans hating or loving U.S. military bases and show that their relationships with the bases are far more complex and ambivalent than most outsiders realize. Drawing on one year of ethnographic fieldwork around bases in Okinawa, Mr. Gabrielson will show that Okinawans who are purely "pro-base" or "anti-base" are extremely rare, with even the most politically active Okinawans falling somewhere in between, and some Okinawans have built relationships with the U.S. military that do not fit into this binary at all.

Carl Gabrielson is a Ph.D. candidate in East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is currently in Tokyo doing research for his dissertation on interaction and cultural exchange between U.S. troops and Japanese civilians.

-To attend the event in person, there is no need to register. For a map and directions to Lakeland's Ryogoku campus, see our website: https://luj.lakeland.edu/contact

**Our in-person guests are asked to follow the usual masking and social-distancing health protocols

--To join on Zoom, please register here (before 5PM on the day of the event). You will be emailed a link that afternoon
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1xBMfiN9TJXwK44qe8dXKPZC9Reey2xlgC2-e4X5QMSo/edit

Lakeland Lectures are a forum for researchers, students and members of the public to discuss contemporary issues affecting Japan. Lakeland University has offered a U.S.-accredited liberal arts program in Tokyo since 1991. Lakeland's main campus is in Wisconsin, USA and was founded in 1862.

--
Roger Grabowski, Jr.
Assistant Professor of General Studies
Lakeland University Japan