African American Women in Japan Under U.S. Military Occupation, 1945–1952

This chapter examines the experiences of African American women who were stationed in various parts of mainland Japan under U.S. military occupation from 1945 to 1952 as major actors in shaping the postwar U.S.-Japanese relationship. It argues that African American women in Japan defined, asserted, and performed alternative racial identities, gender roles, and class positions to achieve their own empowerment within the “transpacific” boundaries they encountered as “occupiers” in Japan, as well as racial and gender minorities in the U.S. military and the larger American society. It also challenges the so-called Master Narrative of the Civil Rights Movement by focusing on the “transpacific” struggles of the African American women in occupied Japan for racial and gender equality and justice.