Transpacific Antiracism: Afro-Asian Solidarity in 20th-Century Black America, Japan, and Okinawa by Yuichiro Onishi (review)

As the title implies, Yuichiro Onishi has sought to explore the growth of a transpacific union between African Americans and Japanese to eliminate racism. In doing so, Onishi takes an episodic approach to his subject. In the first half of the book, subtitled “Discourses,” he examines the prominence of Japan in the thinking of leading African American intellectuals and civil rights activists including W.E.B. Du Bois and Hubert Harrison. Japan’s swift rise into the ranks of the great powers impressed many African Americans and led some to hope that the Asian nation would lead an international campaign against white supremacy. Onishi refers to this support for the upstart Japan as “the pro-Japan provocation,” a term that nicely captures the vicarious thrill one could experience by siding with Japan against the white imperialist nations. The rise of Japan also helped Du Bois fashion an Afro-Asian interpretation of modern history that challenged then fashionable explanations about the rise of the West. This was an important intellectual achievement. Nevertheless, Onishi also acknowledges that in doing so, Du Bois and others who championed Japan ignored or excused Japanese imperialism and racism.

In the second half of the book, subtitled “Collectives,” Onishi looks at the activities of two different groups in the post-World War II era. In the first chapter he describes the creation and early years of the Association of Black Studies, an academic organization in Japan. In the second chapter of this section he looks at the activities of Okinawan and American peace activists who opposed the treaty that would permit the continuation of American military bases on Okinawa after Japan regained sovereignty over the island.

As Onishi shows, two Japanese intellectuals, Nukina Yoshitaka, and his former student, Furukawa Hiromi, overcame their colleagues’ indifference to African American history and culture to form Kokujin Kenkyu no Kai (Association of Negro Studies) which published numerous works by African American authors in translation often accompanied by scholarly essays by Japanese academics. In addition to extolling the merits of, and significance of, African American culture, the founders hoped that the organization would create the basis for what Onishi calls “communal learning.” It is not clear that they were successful in achieving their larger goals but, as Onishi shows, in 1969 Nakajima Yoriko, a female member of the group helped spearhead a campaign in Japan to aid in the defense of the erstwhile Black power advocate Robert Williams.

In the last chapter, Onishi describes the activities of a variety of anti-imperialist groups and individuals on Okinawa in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In this final section the scene shifts from African American and Japanese efforts to achieve solidarity to those of Black gis, Okinawans, and white American peace and civil rights advocates. These efforts took place during the height of the Vietnam War when Okinawa, then under American control, was used as a base and staging area for American military operations. Restoration of Japanese sovereignty over the island had been in the works for some time, but the American officials would not consent to the transfer until they received Japanese assurances that US military installations on the island would be maintained. The Japanese government, which had sacrificed Okinawa twice before, once during the war and then in the peace treaty that granted the U.S. authority over the island, obliged. As Onishi notes, Okinawans preferred to see Japan regain control of the island until they learned that the American bases, which occupied vast stretches of the island, would remain. As the anti-reversion movement gained strength, Black gis stationed on the island also protested continuing discrimination in the military and, in some cases, they extended this critique to include what they condemned as America’s imperialist policies in Asia. Okinawa had the potential to bring together the disparate groups necessary to build the long-desired solidarity between African Americans and Japanese, although that dream...