Naturalization Politics: Imperial Transitions and the Legal Ambiguity of Taiwanese Migrants in American-Occupied Okinawa, 1945–72

This study examines the shifting legal status of Taiwanese migrants living in Okinawa during the period of American Occupation (1945-1972). Beginning in the early 20th century, when Okinawa and Taiwan were both Japanese colonies, Taiwanese began to migrate to Okinawa to work as coal miners and agricultural laborers. After the Pacific War, a small, but sizable community remained in the region. In the postwar period, these residents had to navigate a succession of legal reclassifications: from former subjects of the Japanese empire, to citizens of the Republic of China, and finally to “Non-Ryukyuan nationals” under US-Occupied Okinawa. As the United States and Japan negotiated Okinawa’s reversion and as the Republic of China withdrew from the United Nations, the legal status of the Taiwanese community became entangled in broader geopolitical realignments. The resulting uncertainty rendered their legal status precarious, raising the persistent possibility of statelessness or forced repatriation to Taiwan, a “homeland” that was foreign to the second-generation and third-generation Taiwanese migrants.

Drawing on diplomatic archives from Japan, the United States, and the Republic of China, as well as newspapers and village yearbooks from Okinawa, this presentation focuses on how legal status in postwar Okinawa was not merely an administrative category but a contingent product of competing imperial claims to sovereignty. As the future status of Okinawa was negotiated among Japan, the United States, and the Republic of China, Taiwanese residents were repeatedly reclassified in ways that eroded their access to legal rights and rendered their belonging in Okinawa increasingly tenuous. This study underscores how newly formed postwar legal regimes and geopolitical realignments created conditions for exclusionary citizenship.