Intimacy across the Fencelines by Rebecca Forgash

Author:Rebecca Forgash [Forgash, Rebecca]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History, Asian, Japan, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Anthropology, Political Science
ISBN: 9781501750410
Google: Gnq4DwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2020-08-15T04:00:00+00:00

History of Marriage and Family Regulations in Japan

U.S. military leaders have discouraged marriage between military personnel and Okinawan women since the early postwar. Following Japan’s surrender on August 15, 1945, U.S. troops were instructed to avoid socializing with members of the former enemy, and formal antifraternization regulations were introduced throughout Japan (Koshiro 1999, 59–62). SCAP Circular No. 7 drew attention to antimiscegenation laws in many U.S. states and U.S. immigration law, stating that no armed forces approval would be granted to American servicemen to marry Japanese women at the U.S. consulate, the only registration recognized by Japan or the United States (Koshiro 1999, 156).4 In May 1946, SCAP ruled that Americans in Japan must abide by the Japanese civil code to establish the legality of a marriage. Following this order, many U.S. servicemen were legally married to Japanese women by Shinto, Buddhist, or Christian priests, even though they had not received official military approval.5 U.S. immigration laws, however, barred Japanese persons—defined as those having 50 percent or more Japanese blood—from entering the United States and becoming citizens or permanent residents. Thus American servicemen were not able to take Japanese wives or their children back to the United States. With the exception of a thirty-day reprieve of immigration quotas in June 1947, Japanese brides were not permitted to immigrate to the United States until the McCarran-Walter Act was passed in 1952, allocating to Japan a yearly quota of 185 persons permitted to enter the United States.6

During the 1950s and 1960s, marriages between U.S. military personnel and Okinawans continued to be strongly discouraged by both the military and the local Okinawan community. In interviews, former military men spoke of numerous bureaucratic obstacles and mixed responses from commanding officers. Retired airman Ray Horner, nineteen years old when he began dating Asato Katsuko in 1968, reported, “If he (the commanding officer) found out that you were living with somebody, officially he couldn’t condone that. But he always asked us to have a map of where we were living on the back of our locator card so that somebody could find us in case of emergency. So it was a kind of tacit approval.” Other commanders routinely discouraged such relationships on the grounds that interracial relationships would draw public disapproval in both Okinawa and the United States. George Johnson (who married in 1966 in the Philippines) explained, “The primary argument was ‘Son, you’re away from home and lonely. This is something we’re sure your family is not going to accept. You’re letting your testosterone think for you instead of thinking logically.’ ” Bill Brenner, a retired Marine Corps staff sergeant married in 1972, complained, “The chaplain was talking about how dirty these people are, and this kind of stuff, and how I didn’t really want to get married.” Thomas Cooper, married in 1968 while recuperating from combat injuries in Vietnam, described a meeting with a gunnery sergeant who tore up his marriage application and threatened, “You’ll marry a damn gook over my dead body.” Personal

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