ABSTRACT
Th e narratives above capture two historical moments of rule and militarization in Okinawa. Th e fl ag Chibana chose to keep, the fl ag from the 1960s, symbolized the hope he and other Okinawans had in the possibilities of citizenship during their struggle to end the US postwar occupation. Okinawans were a stateless people throughout America’s twenty-seven-year rule over the islands. As a subjugated people striving for rights conferred by citizenship, theirs was an anti-imperialist struggle. What made it
diff erent from similar struggles taking place throughout the world during the same period was that Okinawans rallied under the Japanese fl ag in their eff ort to oust the US military. Th ey sought membership in an existing state, Japan-the very state that had colonized their territory nearly a century earlier.
