DEVELOPMENT-JAPAN: Amerasians Pay Price of U.S. Military Presence

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

GINOWAN, Japan, Aug 1 2000 (IPS) - In the shadow of the sprawling Oyama public primary school stands a dilapidated white house with a tiny yard — Japan’s first school for Amerasian children.

The AmerAsian School has 40 students between the ages of 3 and 16.

It is run by two women who decided to start the school after grappling with how to find proper education for their own children, whose fathers are American servicemen and were stationed at the military bases in Okinawa.

Says co-director Mimi Thayer: “We wanted our children to study in English but could not afford the more expensive international schools because our husbands have left or have stopped working as servicemen in Okinawa. It has been a uphill battle to keep going.”

Financial problems are also a major headache for the school that has 70 percent of its students living with single parents, 90 percent of whom are dependent on welfare.

In addition, dealing with discrimination from local residents is a daily occurrence. Thayer explains that this is because the Amerasian students are viewed as representing the U.S. bases, also often belong to broken homes or are children born out of wedlock.

Masae Yonamine, the other co-director, is a divorced woman with an 11 year-old son. Sitting at a tiny table in the kitchen that serves as the principal’s office, she says people call her a prostitute on the phone.

“A man once told me that the problems I face now is the result of my playing around with Americans,” she says.

Some letters inform the directors to pack up and leave. Then there are the phone messages that call the school a shameful institute that must not be allowed to exist in Okinawa.

Ginowan is the closest city to Kadena, the largest U.S. air base in Japan. Okinawa, apart from being Japan’s poorest prefecture, is also host to 26,000 out of the 48,000 U.S. military personnel based in Japan.

Twenty-five percent of all U.S. military facilities in Japan, said to have strategic value for Asia’s security, are located in Okinawa in southern Japan.

In other words, the Amerasian school, based in the city, has become the target of Okinawa’s simmering resentment against the American military presence and its soldiers.

The island endured harsh fighting in the Pacific War at the hand of the U.S. army. Many residents chafe against the U.S. continued presence after the island was returned to Japan in 1972, and the offenses by American servicemen since then.

In July, public anger rose again when a drunk U.S. marine was arrested after he entered the apartment of a Japanese teenager and fondled her.

This incident, apart from long-time dissatisfaction with the bases presence, fueled street protests during the Group of 8 summit held in Okinawa in late July.

According to statistics in the Okinawa prefecture, a total of 215 Japanese women married American soldiers in 1998 and 80 divorces were recorded among the group within the same year.

While statistics for Amerasian children are not available, government officials estimate there are about 3,900 such children who belong to single mothers as a result of divorce or being abandoned by their American fathers.

Thayer says the problem comes not only from the Japanese side. A clause in the US-Japan Forces Agreement forbids financial support for children who do not live on the military bases, a system that forces divorced or abandoned Japanese mothers to live without child support.

Thayer is lobbying hard to change the rules. A meeting with US military officials this year produced a pledge to improve matters.

In addition, the Japanese Education Ministry promised in May to develop a new fund to help the school, recognising the institution as playing an important role in the Japan-US military agreement and coping with its social costs.

Both the school’s directors explain they have mixed feelings about U.S. bases stationed in Okinawa.

“I sympathise with people here who face many problems as a result of the U.S. marines. But at the same time, as mothers with children whose fathers worked at the U.S. bases, it is difficult to join the rest and demand that the soldiers return,” explains Yonamine.

The two directors also say they are isolated from gaining entrance to public facilities in Ginowan despite paying local taxes.

In December, a request to use the larger buildings across the road for a dance recital by the school was flatly rejected by the local government. That forced the schoolchildren to crowd into one of two tiny rooms that serve as classrooms to hold the event.

Thayer also says that some of the mothers who send their children to the school have to work two jobs to be able to afford to pay the tuition.

Tuition costs 25,000 yen (233.6 U.S. dollars) per month, which constitutes around a quarter of a single mother’s welfare allowance. American teachers and some Japanese volunteer instructors teach English, Japanese and other subjects such as math and music.

Thayer says half of the children attending the school are not entitled to public child support. because their American fathers just disappeared. This makes it difficult for their mothers to produce the necessary legal documents to obtain support.

Jackie, an 11-year-old student, who wants to be a teacher when she grows up. She says she loves her school as it provides a safe retreat from the rest of the world.

The girl, whose American father lives in the United States, says she used to attend an international school for children who live on the U.S. bases, but had to drop out when her mother could not afford the tuition.

Steve, 16, whose American father abandoned his mother in the United States, says he used to be called “stupid” by his teacher in Japanese school because he could not read Japanese properly.

Another child’s mother explains that she took her son out of public Japanese school because students told him his mother had been raped by U.S. soldiers.

She says her son was particularly singled out by the others when during the street protests in 1995 against the rape of a 12- year-old girl by three American marines.