Night in the American Village

 

Night in the American Village: Women in the Shadow of the U.S. Military Bases in Okinawa by Akemi Johnson shines a light on a part of American involvement in Asia that practically no Americans know about.  After the Battle of Okinawa in 1945, American forces remained on the island, and the bases have become a part of the island – both for good and ill.

Johnson presents a very balanced approach to Okinawa and the U.S. presence on the island.  She handles the horrific sexual assaults and murders of local women by American military personnel, but also shows how the American presence on the island is a boon to many local people; they are exposed to the wider world than most Japanese experience and benefit financially and socially from the Americans.

She also refuses to victimize the Okinawans.  She treats them as fully dimensional people, who are active in their own lives, and pursue their self-interests as they see them.