4 Educating “Good” Nikkei and Okinawan Subjects

While I was a volunteer Japanese language teacher at Okinawa Uno Japanese-Bolivian School (Colegio Particular Mixto Centro Boliviano Japones Okinawa Numero Uno, Numero Uno hereafter) in Colonia Uno and the Nueva Esperanza School (Colegio Mixto “Nueva Esperanza,” Nueva Esperanza hereafter) in Colonia Dos during my fieldwork, I was impressed by the number of hours the Okinawan-Bolivian Nisei and Sansei children spent studying the Japanese language, practicing Okinawan dance, such as Eisā, and preparing for community festivals and events. These classes were not part of the national curriculum, and these extracurricular activities would not necessarily be useful for students’ success in the larger Bolivian society. What, then, did the schools and those who worked for the schools intend to accomplish through education of young Okinawan-Bolivians in Colonia Okinawa, and what were the actual outcomes for the students and for the community at large?

In previous chapters, I explored how the subject positions of Okinawan-Bolivians were shaped in the labor markets and daily working situations in Bolivia and Japan. This chapter turns to another social “site” in which Okinawan-Bolivians’ subject positions were formed: educational institutions. Specifically, I examine elementary and intermediate schools in Colonia Okinawa, which most Okinawan-Bolivian Nisei and Sansei children attended before the vast majority graduated and then moved out of the Colonia. I argue that these educational institutions were intended to help young Okinawan-Bolivians become “good” Nikkei Bolivian and Okinawan diasporic subjects who possess, in theory, idealized and “distilled” attributes (Kibria 2002, 160) of Japanese, Bolivian, and Okinawan cultures. In various educational settings, the ideals of the “good” Nikkei Bolivian and Okinawan diaspora were defined and performed by Okinawan-Bolivians vis-à-vis their Others in Colonia Okinawa, such as non-Nikkei Bolivians, Japanese Naichi-jin, and temporary residents from Okinawa Prefecture. Nevertheless there were unintended consequences of the efforts to cultivate “good” Nikkei Bolivian and Okinawan diasporic subjects out of the Nisei and Sansei children. Specifically, the interactions of Nisei and Sansei children with various people at the school—non-Nikkei Bolivian teachers, Naichijin Japanese teachers, and non-Nikkei Bolivian classmates—often contradicted, compromised, or redirected the school’s effort to produce ideal subjects.

Education in Colonia Okinawa Uno began when Okinawans first settled in the current location of Colonia Okinawa.¹Close After several years of informal education, where the children of settlers were taught by their parents, the Issei leaders founded a K–6 grade school in 1958, which followed the Bolivian national curriculum (Código de la Educación Boliviana).

During the 1960s, Colonia Uno’s formal education was run by the Catholic and Protestant churches, which founded two schools, Colegio San Francisco Xavier and Colegio Evangelica Metodista Colonia Okinawa, in the early 1960s. In 1964, San Francisco Xavier began formal Japanese education after hiring four Japanese nuns with teaching certificates from Miyazaki Karitasu Shūdōjokai (Caritas Sisters of Miyazaki), a Catholic organization in Miyazaki Prefecture, to teach the settlers’ children (Mori 1998a, 106). The school taught Spanish classes that followed the Bolivian national curriculum in the morning and Japanese language classes in the afternoon. The school suffered financial instability, especially after a flood in 1968 created an exodus of Okinawan-Bolivian settlers from Colonia Okinawa. When the Caritas Sisters of Miyazaki ceased to be part of the school administration in 1970, the Okinawan-Bolivian students moved to Colegio Evangelica Metodista. San Francisco Xavier eventually became a public school in 1974 without Japanese classes or teachers.

Colegio Evangelica Metodista was founded in 1961 by a Japanese pastor of the Nihon Kirisuto Kyōdan (United Church of Christ in Japan) who had been preaching among Okinawan settlers in Colonia Uno. From 1962, a non-Nikkei Bolivian pastor and his wife who possessed Bolivian teaching certificates taught regular classes in Spanish, while the Methodist pastor and his wife taught Japanese language classes. In 1965, as the non-Nikkei Bolivian population increased in Colonia Uno, the school became half-private, half-public, staffed with Bolivian teachers appointed by the government, and began to accept non-Nikkei Bolivian students for free. When Japanese education at San Francisco Xavier ended, Colegio Evangelica Metodista became the only school that Okinawan-Bolivian children in Colonia Uno (the most populated of the three subdistricts in Colonia Okinawa) attended.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the rapid increase in the number of non-Nikkei Bolivian students and the steady decrease in Okinawan-Bolivian students (see Chapter 1) dramatically changed the ratio between the Okinawan-Bolivian and non-Nikkei Bolivian students at Colegio Evangelica Metodista (Table 6). In this rapidly changing environment, Okinawan-Bolivian parents were concerned about the increasing number of thefts in the classroom and fights between Okinawan-Bolivian and non-Nikkei Bolivian students. A Nisei woman who went to the school in the early 1980s recalled: “It was so chaotic! I remember that I had to carry around my backpack wherever I went, even when I was playing outside during recess. If I left it on my desk or shelf in the classroom, somebody would have stolen everything from it!” Issei parents believed these problems were caused by non-Nikkei Bolivian students at the school who were

children of the farm laborers they employed. And that mixed classrooms with non-Nikkei Bolivian students were lowering their children’s “learning ability” (gakuryoku) (Nichibo Kyōkai 1985, 2). Furthermore, as the student population increased, the operational costs of the school also rose, which increased the financial burden on Okinawan-Bolivian parents. Okinawan-Bolivian parents pooled money to pay extra compensation for teachers and to help the school purchase and maintain equipment, but the parents of non-Nikkei Bolivian students were unable or unwilling to contribute financially to the school, because they assumed it was their employers’ responsibility to pay for the education of employees’ children (Mori 1998a, 109).

In addition to a lack of public funding, Okinawan-Bolivian settlers had difficulty attracting and retaining qualified teachers, who did not want to be assigned to underequipped and understaffed schools in rural areas (Kunimoto 1986). As labor conditions and teachers’ salaries worsened during the nationwide hyperinflation of the 1980s, strikes frequently paralyzed Colegio Evangelica Metodista. These conditions generated heated debate among Issei on the future of school education in Colonia Okinawa, especially after tests conducted by a group of Japanese scholars in schools in Colonia Okinawa and elite private schools in Santa Cruz de la Sierra revealed that Okinawan-Bolivian students performed considerably worse than wealthy non-Nikkei Bolivian students in private schools in the city (Mitsuhashi 1983).

Issei leaders addressed this concern in 1987 by founding a new private school, pooling money and constructing facilities in the centro of Colonia Uno. The Okinawa Numero Uno Japanese-Bolivian School, for elementary (five years) and intermediate (three years) education, accepted both Okinawan-Bolivian and non-Nikkei Bolivian children but set its tuition high.²Close A 1985 round-table discussion concluded: “A Nichibo Kyōkai–run private school is desirable. It can accept Bolivian children as long as they satisfy independently set private school rules and other conditions, and thereby avoid anti-Japanese sentiment” (Nichibo Kyōkai 1985, 6). By setting the tuition high, Issei attempted to prevent their Nisei children from studying among lower-class non-Nikkei Bolivian children and to encourage them to socialize among themselves and with only a select few middle- and upper-class non-Nikkei Bolivians. Many of those non-Nikkei Bolivian students at Numero Uno were children of CAICO employees, teachers, or stepchildren of intermarried Okinawan-Bolivians (Mori 1998a, 112).³Close

During the 2001 school year, there were seventy-six students, including sixty-five Okinawan-Bolivian students and eleven non-Nikkei Bolivian students. Though it was not mandatory, all Okinawan-Bolivian students voluntarily paid extra tuition to attend the afternoon Japanese language classes, while only three among the eleven non-Nikkei Bolivian students who attended the Bolivian/Spanish classes in the morning stayed after lunch for the Japanese classes. In the afternoon, sixty-eight students attended Japanese language classes, which were divided into nine levels, from the “special class” for those who had little Japanese proficiency to classes 1 through 8, based on students’ language skills. Three Okinawan-Bolivian Nisei, four Japanese Naichi-jin, and two Okinawan teachers from Okinawa Prefecture were in charge of the Japanese classes in the afternoon. As with other community affairs in Colonia Okinawa, JICA has been the most influential state institution in Colonia Okinawa’s education, providing approximately 20 percent of the school’s entire revenue (Okinawa Daiichi Nichibo-kō 1998). Japanese language teaching materials, such as national language (kokugo) textbooks used in Japanese elementary schools, writing and grammar workbooks, a Japanese language teaching manual, various dictionaries, and encyclopedias were obtained through JICA’s Japanese Language Teaching Materials Donation Program.⁴Close

Numero Uno’s five stated educational objectives include a focus on the instruction of “Japanese” culture to students via Japanese language education in addition to fulfilling the Bolivian national curriculum’s requirements: “(1) We pursue the coverage of educational requirements set by the Ministry of Education of Bolivia and education suitable for the non-Nikkei Bolivian population; (2) We pursue an education that instills students with the pride and the intellect to live as Bolivian Nikkei-jin [Bolivians of Japanese descent]; (3) We foster students’ ability to understand and express proper Japanese; (4) Through instruction in the Japanese language, we enable the students to learn Japanese culture, to learn and embody [taitoku suru] the good characteristics of Japanese, and to develop as unique human beings with rich personalities; (5) We pursue co-living [kyōsei], cooperation, and coexistence with non-Nikkei Bolivians” (Okinawa Daiichi Nichibo-kō 2001, 1). Similar to Québécois nationalists who consider their French language a “national essence” (Handler 1988, 161), teaching Japanese language to Okinawan-Bolivian youth was regarded by community leaders as “natural resource and cultural property” that fostered their collective identity (ibid., 167). Through education, it was hoped, Nisei and Sansei youth would become “good” Nikkei Bolivians, who would possess and embody Japanese culture and values, command both the Japanese and Spanish languages, and “coexist” and “co-live” with, but not necessarily be culturally assimilated into, non-Nikkei Bolivians in Colonia Okinawa.

Numero Uno School housed a Spanish department (Seigo-bu) and a Japanesedepartment (Nichigo-bu), each with its own principal. In the morning, students attended classes that followed the Bolivian national curriculum, internally referred to as Spanish classes (Seigo kurasu), taught by non-Nikkei Bolivian teachers. Okinawan-Bolivian students then attended Japanese classes (Nichigo kurasu) in the afternoon, taught by Nisei and Japanese (Naichi-jin and Okinawan) teachers. The afternoon Japanese classes were modeled after classes in Japanese elementary schools, with three forty-minute sessions separated by two five-minute recesses and offering numerous nonacademic programs and chores, such as homeroom activities (gakkyū katsudō), student committee activities (iinkai katsudō), cleaning school classrooms and facilities, and brass band for the upper-graders. Since the Japanese classes in the afternoon were officially an extracurricular program, the non-Nikkei Bolivian principal of the Spanish department served as the school’s principal.

Because the school also functioned as a key community institution for Colonia Okinawa at large, teachers took on the responsibilities of planning and running both school and community events. The school and community events in 2001 that involved Numero Uno students included the following (SP indicates mainly Spanish department events; JP, Japanese department events):

Día del Padre (Father’s Day: SP, March)

Bolivia Japanese Language Association Friendly Sports Match (sports event among Japanese language schools in the Santa Cruz region: JP, May)

Día de la Madre (Mother’s Day: SP/JP, May)

Día del Maestro (Teachers’ Day: SP/JP, June)

School Track Meet (JP, June)

Día de Amistad (Friendship Day: SP, July)

Día de Patria (Independence Day: SP, August)

School Marathon (JP, September)

Keiro no Hi (Respect for Elders Day: JP, September)

Japanese Speech Contest (JP, October)

Feria de Ciencia (Science Festival: SP, October)

Nichibo Kyōkai Softball Tournament (JP, November)

Bolivia Japanese Language Association Speech Contest (JP, November)­

Obra Teatral (Theatrical Work: SP, November)

Shukuhaku Gakushu (School Sleepover: JP, November)

Graduation Ceremony (SP/JP, November)

By celebrating holidays based on both Bolivian and Japanese calendars and customs, and participating in local community events both within the municipality and in the larger Nikkei Bolivian community, Numero Uno pursued bilingual (Spanish and Japanese) and bicultural (Bolivian and Japanese) education. ­­

Despite the school’s fairly straightforward official goals, the diverse personnel within the school influenced Nisei and Sansei children in complex and often contradictory ways. There were five key groups of individuals that shaped the self-identification of the Okinawan-Bolivian children. The majority of the Japanese-class teachers were temporary residents visiting from Japan proper or from Okinawa Prefecture, sponsored by JICA, the Okinawa prefectural government, and the Methodist Church of Japan. In addition to these Naichi-jin Japanese and Okinawan outsiders, three other groups played important roles at the school: non-Nikkei Bolivian teachers of the Spanish department, non-Nikkei Bolivian students, and Nisei Okinawan-Bolivian teachers of the Japanese department. Each of these five principal groups at the school—non-Nik-kei Bolivian students, Spanish-class teachers, Naichi-jin teachers, Okinawan teachers, and Nisei Okinawan-Bolivian teachers—had a unique influence in forming Nisei and Sansei children’s identities.

As stated in the school’s educational objectives, Numero Uno School did not intend to prevent Okinawan-Bolivian students from identifying themselves as Bolivian nationals, but it did appear to discourage what the Okinawan-Bolivian adults stereotyped as “Bolivian” cultural characteristics and habits. The same sentiments were frequently expressed by Japanese-class teachers, for example, when they frowned upon non-Nikkei Bolivian students for being tardy and rowdy. One teacher made fun of a non-Nikkei Bolivian student in his class who never brought her homework to class, saying that she would bring it mañana (tomorrow). He later nicknamed her mañana, and he gave up on her becoming more punctual and responsible. A veteran Nisei Japanese-class teacher who taught the special class that included several non-Nikkei Bolivian students confessed she struggled to deal with their behavior. One day she came back to the teachers’ office after a particularly trying class session and said, sighing: “I wonder why Bolivian kids [Boribiajin no ko] are so chatty! [Name of a non-Nikkei Bolivian student] just couldn’t keep quiet.”

Misbehavior by Nisei and Sansei students in the school was often described as a sign of their “Bolivianization” (Boribiajin-ka, literally “becoming a Bolivian person”), partly because their troubles at the school often involved non-Nikkei Bolivian students. While I was teaching at Numero Uno, a group of eighth graders were suspended for two days after they had broken school rules. They went off school property during a recess to fish at a nearby pond. The group included three Okinawan-Bolivian and two non-Nikkei Bolivian boys. As the teachers discussed the incident, they expressed their concern that “the Bolivian kids” were having a “bad influence” on some of the Okinawan-Bolivian students. A Nisei Japanese class teacher said, “As [Okinawan-Bolivian children] become older, they begin to imitate [mane o suru] some bad habits of [their non-Nikkei Bolivian classmates]. It is good that they get along with each other, but I don’t want them to do bad things together.” Okinawan-Bolivian students’ friendships with non-Nikkei Bolivian students were, therefore, tolerated insofar as their allegedly innate “Bolivian” moral characters were not transmitted to Okinawan-Bolivian students to erode the “Japanese” character that the school was trying to instill in the students. Partly because of subtle discouragement by the Japanese-class teachers and parents, it was uncommon to find Okinawan-Bolivian and non-Nikkei Bolivian students developing close friendships at the school (Kasuya 1998, 126). Becoming a “good” Nikkei Bolivian, in the eyes of Japanese-class teachers at Numero Uno School, then, meant not being too culturally “Bolivianized,” which could be achieved by limiting socialization between Okinawan-Bolivian and non-Nikkei Bolivian students.

Non-Nikkei Bolivian teachers of Spanish classes were another group that was assumed to have a strong “Bolivianizing” influence on Okinawan-Bolivian students but could not be easily controlled by the Numero Uno School administration and Japanese-class teachers. While the school has separate offices for the Spanish-class and Japanese-class teachers, it was rare for non-Nikkei Bolivian teachers to step into the Japanese-class teachers’ office or vice versa. Most Japanese-class teachers came to the office around 1:00 p.m., after the Spanish-class teachers had finished their morning classes and left the school. The school had, however, many public functions and events in which both Japanese- and Spanish-class teachers had to participate. On such occasions, the Japanese-class teachers viewed the non-Nikkei Bolivian teachers as ambiguous role models for the Nisei and Sansei students. In the eyes of the Japanese-class teachers, non-Nikkei Bolivian teachers, who were expected to command respect from the students, embodied some of the “Bolivian” characteristics and manners that the Japanese-class teachers wanted to discourage the Okinawan-Bolivian students from acquiring.

The Japanese-class teachers often complained that the Spanish-class teachers were not acting as good role models for the Okinawan-Bolivian students. During a Japanese-class staff meeting after the school track meet, Satō Tsutomu, a Naichi-jin Japanese teacher who taught at Numero Uno as a JICA senior volunteer, and Gushiken Akira, an elementary schoolteacher from Okinawa Prefecture, pointed out that the Spanish-class teachers had been lackadaisical while the students and Japanese-class teachers were doing a warm-up exercise. Mr. Gushiken, a physical education teacher, told the other Japanese-class teachers that, although he had instructed the students to move their bodies briskly to the music, “these [Spanish-class] teachers were the ones who looked most uninterested and moved dully in front of the students [laugh].” Mr. Satō agreed and said jokingly, “Maybe we need to teach the Spanish-class teachers how to move their bodies to the music properly before next year’s track meet [laugh].” The two teachers from Japan proper and Okinawa Prefecture, both of whom were temporary instructors at the school, found such behavior by the non-Nikkei Bolivian teachers amusing, but Nisei teachers, like Ms. Onaga and Ms. Tamashiro, didn’t seem to find it too funny. They responded, frowning: “We know. This sort of thing always troubles us [i.e., Japanese-class teachers].”

Similarly, during a staff meeting after a school fieldtrip to Santa Cruz de Sierra, the Japanese-class teachers expressed frustration with what they viewed as the Spanish-class teachers’ irresponsible actions during the trip. Ms. Tanaka, a Naichi-jin Japanese teacher who had taught in Colonia Okinawa for decades, expressed her concern about the students’ behavior in public during the trip. Although one of the trip’s objectives was that “students should learn public manners and group conduct,” she pointed out that some students had wandered off from the group and bought snacks from peddlers on the sidewalk. Ms. Higa, a young Nisei teacher, was disturbed by it, too, but she “couldn’t say anything to the kids, because the Spanish-class teachers were the first ones [to go buy snacks from the street vendors].” Mr. Gushiken, as an outsider from Okinawa Prefecture, asked the Nisei teachers: “Well, to what extent are we supposed to enforce these rules? I also noticed that the kids were constantly eating snacks—on the bus, while visiting sites—I mean, all the time! I was wondering if I should just let such behaviors go as [an indication of] the national character [okuni-gara] of this country.” In response, Ms. Onaga said, “We [i.e., Japanese-class teachers] know such behaviors are not good, but they [i.e., Spanish-class teachers] don’t think so. There is really nothing we can do about it.”

Non-Nikkei Bolivian teachers, however, also embodied what the Japanese-class teachers considered to be favorable “Bolivian” national characteristics, such as their playfulness and allegedly exceptional hand-eye coordination. During Día de Estudiantes (Students’ Day), the event during which teachers showed their appreciation of the students, the Japanese- and Spanish-class teachers were together making a large number of sandwiches for the children to eat. Ms. Onaga and Ms. Ihara, both Nisei teachers, pointed at a female non-Nikkei Bolivian (Spanish-class) teacher who used her palm as a cutting board while slicing a tomato with a knife. Seeing amazement in my facial expression, they said: “People here [kocchi no hito] are very good at using a knife. They cut and peel vegetables with a knife so smoothly.” At the same event, the Spanish-class teachers also put on elaborate shows, including dances, comic skits, and songs, for the students, who immensely enjoyed the entertainment. To Mr. Gushiken and me, who were also impressed by the teachers’ well-prepared and well-performed acts, Ms. Onaga said: “They are very good at entertainment, aren’t they? Whenever there are occasions, they always come up with very good stuff.”

The non-Nikkei Bolivian (Spanish-class) teachers represented, in the Okinawan-Bolivian school staff members’ eyes, more of an obstacle than a help in the school’s attempt to instill in Nisei and Sansei children the ideals of “good” Nikkei Bolivian subjects, a combination of what they considered to be the superior cultural traits of Bolivia and Japan. Even as teachers, from the Okinawan-Bolivians’ perspective, these non-Nikkei Bolivians lacked the strong work ethic and self-discipline that Nisei and Sansei students were expected to learn. Instead, these teachers demonstrated skills appropriate for manual labor and entertainment, which Okinawan-Bolivians viewed as amusing but not terribly important traits for ideal Nikkei Bolivian subjects.

The position of Japanese-class teacher is perhaps the most important public post in Colonia Okinawa that is typically filled by Japanese Naichi-jin. From 1972 to 1994, a total of twenty-four Japanese Naichi-jin teachers were placed in Colonia Okinawa in rotating positions to help with Japanese instruction. In addition, the Methodist and Caritas churches in Japan began placing volunteer Japanese language teachers in the schools in Colonia Okinawa in 1958 and 1964, respectively. Ms. Tanaka, originally from central Japan, who had been the pastor of the Methodist Church in Colonia Okinawa since 1975, became the first principal of Numero Uno School’s Japanese department. She also recruited younger Japanese Naichi-jin volunteers to help with church activities and to teach Japanese classes at the school.

Since 1972, JICA has sent experienced schoolteachers, usually headmasters or principals, for two- or three-year terms to Colonia Okinawa and other Nikkei schools in Bolivia to help develop Japanese language education there. In 1990, the program was officially renamed the Nikkei Society Senior Volunteer Program. Before teachers were allowed to teach in Colonia Okinawa, JICA headquarters in Japan screened candidates for positions as senior volunteer teachers for competence not only as Japanese language teachers, but also as trainers of Okinawan-Bolivian Japanese language teachers and as administrative advisors for schools and community organizations.⁵Close JICA’s Nikkei Society Youth Volunteer Program was a successor to the Overseas Development Youth (Kaigai Kaihatsu Seinen) program, which was originally founded in 1985 with the goal

of promoting the immigration of young Japanese into overseas Nikkei communities in developing countries, such as Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay.⁶Close During my fieldwork in Colonia Okinawa from 2000 to 2001, Satō Tsutomu, a retired high school principal from Aichi Prefecture, was the senior volunteer teacher for the Colonia Okinawa schools, and a new youth volunteer, Sawa Akiko from Yokohama, began teaching at Numero Uno School in March 2001. ­

These JICA volunteers and other Naichi-jin teachers were expected to bring a sense of authenticity to the Colonia schools’ Japanese linguistic and cultural education. Mr. Satō taught all grades of Japanese classes and participated in weekly staff meetings. He was also an advisor for Nichibo Kyōkai, which oversaw the school’s administration. He held a workshop for all Numero Uno Japanese-class teachers to inform them of the current Japanese language teaching curriculum in Japan and presented the new Instruction and Advising Guidelines (Kyōiku Shidō Yōryō) for elementary education in Japan to them. Taking notes diligently, Japanese-class teachers expressed their willingness to keep up with the latest educational trends in Japan, even though the guidelines were not enforced in Nikkei schools overseas. The authority given to Japan and Japanese Naichi-jin regarding Japanese language education by Okinawan-Bolivians was also apparent when I first visited Numero Uno at the beginning of my fieldwork. When I asked the Japanese department principal, a Nisei woman, about the possibility of volunteering at the school, I was surprised at how easily and eagerly she allowed me to start teaching Japanese, without even asking me if I had teaching experience. In her eyes, apparently, the fact that I had been born and raised in Japan and had completed college education in Japan was enough to qualify me to teach the language to Okinawan-Bolivian children at the school.

The linguistic and cultural “Japaneseness” attributed to the Japanese Naichi-jin teachers also provided a point of reference against which Okinawan-Bolivians understood their own subject positions. Although the dichotomy between “Bolivian” and “Japanese” was undoubtedly the most fundamental distinction made by Okinawan-Bolivians, the presence of Naichi-jin teachers at Numero Uno School helped Okinawan-Bolivians recognize and assert their difference from the Japanese Naichi-jin. The JICA volunteer teachers were frequently invited to the homes of elder Issei, who were eager to tell the Naichijin newcomers how grueling yet adventurous the elders’ lives in rural Bolivia had been and to treat the newcomers to local Bolivian foods, such as grilled crocodile meat, even though these were hardly part of the Issei’s daily diet. One elderly Issei invited me and another Naichi-jin teacher to his house and showed us his old handgun and demonstrated to us how to clean it. He then told us that he often took new JICA volunteer teachers to his farmland and let them shoot his handgun and rifle there: “They have never shot a gun in their lives because they lived in a place like [virtually gun-free] Japan, you know? So everybody loves it! That’s the kind of thing they can only do here.” Similarly, I often witnessed a group of Nisei and Sansei students at Numero Uno catching new Naichi-jin teachers from Japan between classes and lecturing them about local food, customs, and Spanish slang that were unfamiliar to the newcomers, while enjoying their perplexed reactions.

In contrast to the Okinawan-Bolivians’ self-presentation as being tough and wild, the Japanese Naichi-jin teachers were considered intellectually sophisticated but physically weak. They were, therefore, expected to help the Okinawan-Bolivians as organizers and stewards for the various community events. For instance, less than a month after I arrived in Colonia Okinawa, Nichibo Kyōkai asked me to serve as an organizing staff member for the Colonia Okinawa Track Meet. For the track meet, most event staff members assigned important tasks were Naichi-jin outsiders, such as JICA youth volunteers at the schools and hospital, Okinawa Prefecture Program teachers, and Methodist Church volunteers, all working under Okinawa Prefecture Program teachers, who were routinely designated as event directors. As Okinawan-Bolivians identified themselves as uneducated and unsophisticated—unfit for planning and executing details—Naichi-jin outsiders, such as Japanese class teachers at Numero Uno School, were asked to fill the void in the community.

Their self-presentations as being uneducated but tough implied that Okinawan-Bolivians had a high regard for physical, embodied skills over intellectual skills. Despite their concern about the declining academic skills among Nisei youth, which led to the founding of Numero Uno in the 1980s, Issei and Nisei parents did not appear to be overly concerned about their children’s academic performance, often regarding vocational skills, such as machine repair and sewing, as more valuable (Mori 1998b, 114). Mr. Satō noticed that “the people [in Colonia Okinawa] fundamentally valued physical labor more than mental labor.” With a resigned smile, he continued: “When I was asked to hold tutoring sessions for high school students during the [summer] break, some parents were upset, saying that the sessions cost too much…. The farmers don’t value ‘head-using work’ [atama o tsukau shigoto] very much because it only uses one’s brain, not one’s body. They think, ‘Why should anyone be able to make money by working in an air-conditioned room?’ ” Ironically, therefore, the self-stereotyping by Okinawan-Bolivians as rural physical workers, as opposed to Naichi-jin as urban intellectuals, explicitly or implicitly encouraged Nisei and Sansei children to pursue vocational and manual skills instead of academic and intellectual ones. Kawabata Takashi, a Naichi-jin Japanese and former Japanese-class teacher at Numero Uno School, said: “One thing I noticed among the young [Okinawan-Bolivian] people here was that most of them have mechanical skills, such as welding and metal cutting…. They are fundamentally good at manual labor that requires skills. Perhaps that is why there are many [Nisei youth] from [Colonia] Okinawa working in car repair factories and the like.”

Expected to bring authenticity and credibility to Numero Uno School’s Japanese language education and administration, Japanese Naichi-jin teachers provided Okinawan-Bolivians with points of reference against which the Okinawan-Bolivians understood their own subject positions. Even though Japanese Naichi-jin teachers were held up as the bearers of authentic “Japanese” cultural and mental traits, which Okinawan-Bolivian children were expected to emulate to become “good” Nikkei Bolivians, these teachers simultaneously embodied what Okinawan-Bolivians considered they were not and did not want to be: brainy and wimpy urbanites who lacked manual skills and physical toughness. These perceived differences in roles, abilities, and characteristics between the temporary Japanese Naichi-jin teachers and Okinawan-Bolivians indicate the community members’ ambivalent feelings toward the ideals of “good” Nikkei Bolivian subjects that youth are expected to embody.

Okinawan teachers from Okinawa Prefecture added more layers to Colonia Okinawa schools’ mission to mold the community’s youth into “good” Nikkei Bolivian subjects. Okinawa Prefecture’s Education Ministry is actively involved in school education in the Colonia. From 1987 to 2001, sixteen public school teachers from Okinawa Prefecture were assigned to Colonia Okinawa as Okinawa-kenmin ijūchi kyōiku shisetsu haken kyōshi (teachers assigned to educational institutions in overseas settlements of Okinawan immigrants; Okinawa Prefecture Program teachers hereafter). Highlighting the historical and cultural uniqueness of Okinawa in their teaching and community involvement, these teachers helped Okinawan-Bolivians in Colonia Okinawa identify themselves not only as “good Nikkei Bolivians” but also as Okinawan diasporic subjects.

Although Okinawa Prefecture Program teachers were, by and large, asked to fulfill the same roles as JICA senior and youth volunteer teachers, Okinawa Prefecture Program teachers were also expected to introduce Okinawan traditional arts, such as Eisā dance and sanshin, a stringed musical instrument, to the students and Okinawan-Bolivian community members at large during the teachers’ two-year tenures. During my fieldwork, there were three Okinawan Prefecture Program teachers in the Colonia. Gushiken Akira, an elementary school teacher from Okinawa, taught at Numero Uno. Ishimine Muneo in Colonia Dos was replaced by Ishiki Katsu after Mr. Ishimine’s two-year term ended at Nueva Esperanza School. As a member of a famous Okinawan music and dance performing team back in Okinawa Prefecture, Mr. Gushiken was also a well-trained performer and choreographer of Eisā dance and Ryūkyū drum (Ryūkyū daiko). During his tenure at Numero Uno, Mr. Gushiken taught the dance to the school’s upperclassmen, Colonia Okinawa Youth Association members, and the mothers’ associations in Colonia Uno and Trés. In addition to teaching Japanese classes and Okinawan folk arts, Okinawa Prefecture Program teachers were also expected to assume more responsibilities in planning and running Colonia Okinawa’s community events, such as the Colonia-wide Ekiden race and track meet, than other Japanese Naichi-jin teachers, presumably because of the program teachers’ ability to connect emotionally with Okinawan-Bolivian community members.

Okinawa Prefecture Program teachers were very popular among the Okinawan-Bolivian students’ parents and grandparents, especially if the teachers possessed certain behavioral, psychological, and physical attributes that the community members considered (stereotyped) as “typically” Okinawan, such as fluency in Uchināguchi (Okinawan language), an easygoing attitude, dark skin, a loud voice, and generous consumption of alcoholic drinks. During my interviews with Issei in Colonia Okinawa, many fondly recalled Okinawa Prefecture Program teachers in the past who had taught sanshin and Eisā to the students and spoken to them in Uchināguchi. In fact, the Issei elders of Colonia Okinawa were disappointed if Okinawan teachers lacked these qualities. Ashimine Manabu, a former Okinawa Prefecture Program teacher, told me that he might have been more warmly accepted by the community had he been able to speak the Okinawan language fluently and to drink alcohol: “I don’t drink, and I don’t speak Uchināguchi. So, sometimes the parents and grandparents don’t seem to know what to do with me [laugh]. Mr. Nakane [another Okinawa Prefecture Program teacher teaching in Colonia Okinawa at the time] can speak Uchināguchi really well, perhaps because he is, unlike me, from a rural area. So he gets invitations from the grandpas and grandmas here quite often.” These alleged uniquely Okinawan characteristics that the Okinawan-Bolivian residents expected from the teachers went beyond the language they spoke. When a new teacher from Okinawa Prefecture arrived at Nueva Esperanza School in March 2001, Kuniyoshi Hidehiko, the school board chair, went to the Santa Cruz airport to welcome the teacher and his family. When I asked Mr. Kuniyoshi later what the new teacher, Ishiki Katsu, was like, Mr. Kuniyoshi was very happy with what he had seen: “Oh, he is an Okinawan, from whichever angle you look at him! [Doko kara mite mo Okinawa no hito dayo!] He talks loudly and dresses casually—he was wearing flip-flops coming out of the gate! [laugh].”

These descriptions of “typical Okinawan” as embodied by the Okinawa Prefecture Program teachers highlighted the differences between Japanese Naichi-jin and Okinawans (and, by extension, Okinawan-Bolivians) recognized by Okinawan-Bolivians. Like Japanese Naichi-jin teachers for Japanese classes, Okinawa Prefecture Program teachers were a reference point against which Okinawan-Bolivians interpreted their subject positions as members of the Okinawan diaspora in Bolivia. During Japanese classes, Mr. Gushiken frequently used terms and expressions unique to the Okinawan language with his students, even though some students might not have understood him. When the intermediate Japanese class students were creating a short act for the Keirō No Hi (Respect for Elders Day) event, a Sansei student came to ask him how to say certain Japanese phrases in the Okinawan “dialect” (hōgen). Mr. Gushiken told the student the terms and then added, “Well, [the language] is not a [mere Japanese] dialect, it is Uchināguchi,” reminding the student that the Okinawan language is not subordinate to Japanese but a unique and autonomous language.­

The distinction between the Okinawan diasporic Self and Japanese Naichijin Others made by Okinawan-Bolivians relied on the authority of the Okinawa Prefecture Program teachers as “real” Okinawans. At the welcome party for Ishiki Katsu, the Okinawa Prefecture Program teacher, a Nisei man in his thirties sat next to me and began accusing me of ignoring him on a previous day when we had passed each other on the street. I did not recognize him, so I told him that I didn’t think I had met him before. The man, who was quite drunk already, turned to Mr. Ishiki, who was sitting near us, and said, “See? Naichā [Naichi-jin] are so stuck up and cold [kiddote-ite tsumetai]! They are different from Uchinā [Okinawans], don’t you think?” He had been a dekasegi migrant to Japan, where he, like many other Nisei dekasegi migrants in urban Japan, had had a difficult time. He believed that he had been turned down when he applied for jobs in Japan because of his Okinawan surname. He continued talking to Mr. Ishiki: “They [Naichi-jin] are all snobs, aren’t they? And they don’t like Uchinā.” This incident not only revealed the lingering antipathy and suspicion toward Japanese Naichi-jin felt by (at least some) Okinawan-Bolivians, which had often developed through their hardships as dekasegi migrant workers in mainland Japanese cities, but also indicated their reliance on the Okinawa Prefecture Program teachers as a reliable source of an authentic Okinawan perspective on the Japanese nation-state and Japanese Naichi-jin.

Okinawa Prefecture Program teachers helped the Okinawan-Bolivian students, their parents, and school staff members learn and maintain their Okinawan cultural heritage through instruction in traditional music and dance. Equally important, these teachers functioned for Okinawan-Bolivians, students and nonstudents alike, as an authentic embodiment of their ancestral origin, represented through the teachers’ speech, habits, character, and even physical appearance, which were viewed by Okinawan-Bolivians as uniquely Okinawan. The teachers’ presence in Colonia Okinawa served as a crucial reminder for Okinawan-Bolivians of their distinctiveness as part of the Okinawan diaspora apart from Japanese Naichi-jin and their overseas counterparts.

Among the four Nisei teachers at Numero Uno School in 2000, two were farm owners’ wives, one was married to a doctor at the Colonia hospital, and one was a young Nisei who had graduated from Numero Uno not long before. None possessed either Bolivian or Japanese teaching certificates or degrees from Bolivian or Japanese universities. Those Nisei Japanese-class teachers were placed in an ambivalent position at the school. On the one hand, as native residents of Colonia Okinawa who had been involved in the community’s schools for a long time, they played the role of bilingual and bicultural interpreter for temporary instructors visiting from Japan proper and Okinawa Prefecture, who commanded little Spanish and knew little about the Bolivian school system, the Colonia Okinawan community, or Bolivian society in general. On the other hand, as underqualified Japanese language teachers, they also had to learn teaching skills from veteran teachers from Japan proper and Okinawa Prefecture who had been properly trained and licensed. Thus, the Nisei teachers epitomized the ambivalence inherent in the hybrid ideal of “good” Nikkei Bolivians with an Okinawan cultural heritage, which the Nisei and Sansei children were expectedto pursue; the Nisei teachers felt they were unable to assert themselves as being fully qualified to help the students achieve any one particular aspect of the ideal.­

Most Nisei teachers at Numero Uno School had become Japanese language teachers to fulfill the community’s need, not out of their own aspirations. Finding enough qualified Japanese-class teachers was always the biggest challenge for the Colonia schools. While the aging Issei settlers were more comfortable in their command of Uchināguchi (or a regional variant), Nisei were generally not confident enough in their command of Japanese to teach in the classroom, especially writing and reading, because most had received formal Japanese language education only in Colonia Okinawa and only through middle school. In addition, as white-collar occupations like schoolteachers were not highly regarded among Okinawan-Bolivians (and were poorly paid) in Colonia Okinawa, Nisei housewives who were fluent in Japanese usually filled the vacant positions.⁷Close Despite their fluent Japanese speech, adequate writing skills, and years of teaching Japanese classes at Numero Uno School, these Nisei teachers were insecure about their linguistic and pedagogical skills. When I first met Ms. Onaga Tokiko, the Japanese department principal, I told her that I had not had much experience in Japanese instruction. She dismissed my concern: “Oh, no, please don’t worry. We are more or less amateurs, too.” When Ms. Onaga wrote official letters, announcements, or newsletters in Japanese, she asked the teachers from Japan, Mr. Satō, Mr. Gushiken, or Ms. Tanaka, to double-check what she had written before mailing them out. The Nisei teachers regularly participated in workshops organized by the Japanese Language Education Study Group of the Region of Santa Cruz (Santakurusu-Shū Nihongo Kyōiku Kenkyū-kai), which was founded in 1980 to help Japanese-class teachers in Colonia Okinawa, Colonia San Juan Japones de Yapacaní, and Santa Cruz de la Sierra to improve Japanese language pedagogy.

It was no easy task for these Nisei women to be at the same time native-born Bolivians, who understood the realities of rural Bolivian customs and norms, and Japanese-class teachers, who were expected to teach Japanese language and culture to the students, especially when there were irreconcilable differences between the Naichi-jin and Okinawan Japanese-language teachers’ ideas of appropriate school activities and local norms. For instance, Mr. Gushiken, an Okinawa Prefecture Program teacher, was troubled when he learned that Numero Uno students would perform Eisā dances around nine o’clock in the evening at the Nikkei Association’s festival in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, which he considered too late for an official school activity. Ms. Onaga and Ms. Oshiro, both Nisei teachers, appeared apologetic, and they explained to him how Bolivian festivals normally took place:

gushiken:

Is there any way that the children [i.e., students] could dance earlier in the event and come home sooner? Nine o’clock seems awfully late for schoolchildren to participate in an event. Besides, this festival is not officially a school event, either.

onaga:

Events here usually begin very late. When they begin too early on a weekday evening, people can’t come because of their work. On the weekends, because people don’t have to worry about [going to work] the next day, events also start very late in the evening. So, either way, they tend to be very late.

gushiken:

Normally in Japan, schools don’t take students out at night after six o’clock. Never!

On numerous occasions, Ms. Onaga and other Nisei teachers had to explain to the Naichi-jin and Okinawan teachers about the customs in Bolivia and Colonia Okinawa, hoping that the teachers would agree to compromise. By acting as cultural intermediaries for the Japanese and Okinawan teachers, these Nisei teachers were placed in the position of defending the school’s ambiguously and contradictorily defined missions: to help Nisei and Sansei children gain idealized and essentialized “Japanese” characteristics and behaviors while continuing to live in the realities of Bolivian society.

The ambiguity and contradiction in the ideals of “good” Nikkei Bolivians were also expressed by the Nisei teachers when they commented on non-Nikkei Bolivians in Colonia Okinawa on different occasions. The Nisei teachers often were defensive about social norms of Bolivia and Colonia Okinawa when speaking with the Japanese and Okinawan teachers, but they also shared some negative stereotypes with their Issei parents regarding locals or Boribia-jin, thereby sharply distinguishing themselves from local non-Nikkei Bolivians. When Mr. Gushiken told his colleagues that he would plant a mandarin tree in his backyard, Ms. Onaga, a Nisei teacher, and Ms. Tanaka, a Japanese Naichi-jin teacher and a longtime resident of Colonia Okinawa, gave him their advice:

onaga:

You have to think carefully about where you plant a fruit-bearing tree. Otherwise, the fruits will be easily stolen.

tanaka:

They [i.e., non-Nikkei Bolivians] are very smart when it comes to such matters [as theft].

gushiken:

Mr. T [his predecessor] told me when I met him, “It would have been okay if they had taken only mangos from the trees in my yard, but they also took my laundry from the clothes line” [laugh].

tanaka:

And once you give them a piece of fruit, they will come to you all the time.

onaga:

[Nodding] They think that they deserve to receive it from you.

⁸Close

As understanding and protective as the Nisei teachers might try to be of local customs and norms in Colonia Okinawa and in Bolivian society at large, fundamentally the teachers did not see themselves as part of the same community as non-Nikkei Bolivians; in their view non-Nikkei Bolivians remained fundamentally different subjects from what their Nisei and Sansei children should become. This is not to say, however, that Nisei teachers discouraged Nisei and Sansei students from identifying themselves as Bolivian (Boribia-jin). When an Okinawan-Bolivian student came to the teachers’ office and complained to a Nisei teacher that “some Boribia-jin kids” were causing trouble, the teacher chastised him for his wording, saying, “Well, you are Boribia-jin, too.” It appeared that, to maintain the ideal of the “good” Nikkei Bolivian subject as a logically feasible goal to pursue, these Nisei teachers tried hard to make a distinction between simply being a Bolivian national and being assimilated into what they negatively stereotyped as Bolivian culture.

In their attempt to help Nisei and Sansei children fulfill the ideals of “good” Nikkei Bolivian subjects with idealized notions of “Japanese” culture and morality, such as honesty, obedience, and hard work, as well as a strong “Bolivian” national identity, the Nisei teachers at Numero Uno School struggled with what were perceived as undesirable national characteristics and customs of Bolivia. Their solution was to encourage Nisei and Sansei to self-identify as Bolivian and, at the same time, to discourage them from acquiring what they negatively perceived as uniquely “Bolivian” customs and mentalities. The Nisei teachers’ awkward efforts to cope with the Japanese-class teachers from Japan, who were confused and frustrated by the local realities of the Bolivian school system, lucidly exemplified the Okinawan-Bolivian community’s ambivalent and uncertain pursuit in educating its youth.

The complex and often conflicted ideal of “good” Nikkei Bolivians with Okinawan diasporic awareness that the Okinawan-Bolivian community hoped Niseiand Sansei youth would fulfill was narrated, negotiated, and enacted by the Japanese-class teachers and the students’ parents in various school and community events. Four events and activities that Okinawan-Bolivian students at Numero Uno School participated in were particularly noteworthy in this regard: Japanese-language speech contests, school chores, the Colonia Okinawa Track Meet, and Okinawan Eisā dance performances. These events provided venues through which various Okinawan-Bolivian community members articulated their diverse views on what it is to be Bolivian, Japanese (Nikkei), and Okinawan or part of the Okinawan diaspora. While communal harmony and equality were lauded as “Nikkei” virtues in intellectual settings, physical rigor and competitiveness were celebrated as “Okinawan” values, both of which the Okinawan-Bolivian community members hoped to instill into their Nisei and Sansei offspring, thereby preventing the threat of what they perceived as “Bolivian” cultural values, such as individualism and laziness, influencing the youth.­

Japanese speech contests, in which the Okinawan-Bolivian students wrote and presented essays in Japanese, showed the ways in which the community sought to define, however tenuously, what “good” Nikkei Bolivian subjects were supposed to be. During the long process of writing and practicing to present essays in Japanese, the Okinawan-Bolivian teachers, students, and community members exhibited a strong aversion to the very idea of competition among the community members, often resisting the temporary Japanese (including Okinawan) teachers’ directions. In the eyes of the Okinawan-Bolivians, no one within the community should be publicly acknowledged as linguistically and intellectually superior to the others or as more or less authentically “Japanese” than other Okinawan-Bolivian individuals. Their anxiety about being evaluated for their Japanese writing and presentation skills shows what they viewed as important attributes of “good” Nikkei Bolivian subjects in Colonia Okinawa. Rather than possessing a superb command of the Japanese language, maintaining harmonious relationships among themselves and cultivating certain aptitudes, or, more specifically, a strong work ethic, were what would make Okinawan-Bolivian youth “good” Nikkei subjects.

The School Speech Contest (Kōnai Ohanashi Taikai, literally “In-School Storytelling Convention”) in October was regarded by the Japanese-class teachers as one of the important events of the year. When I met with the Japanese department principal in early July 2000, I was told that the classes until October, when my term as a substitute teacher would end, would focus on preparing the students for the speech contest. All Japanese-class students, including non-Nikkei Bolivian students who were enrolled in Japanese classes, wrote, memorized, and presented short essays (length requirements differed among grades) in front of the parents and Japanese-class teachers, who were also the judges.⁹Close As the contest approached, the students used class time to write, edit, and practice presenting the essays clearly. For the School Speech Contest, the teachers were asked to judge each student’s speech according to the following three criteria:

Mr. Satō, the contest’s chief judge, proposed dropping the third criterion, dress and bowing, from the list, because he thought manners were less important than the quality of the speech itself. The Nisei teachers were a little surprised by the suggestion to change the long-accepted criterion, but, as they usually accepted the Naichi-jin teachers’ authority, they adopted the change.

Despite these evaluation criteria, the competitive aspect of the event was openly detested by the Okinawan-Bolivian students, their parents, and Nisei teachers at Numero Uno School. At the staff meeting before the contest, a Nisei teacher raised the concern that some students would be too discouraged if only two from each class won a prize, because “everybody [was] trying hard.” Thanks to the Nisei teacher’s push, the teachers eventually decided to give a participation prize (sanka-shō) to all students, although contest participation was mandatory for Japanese-class students.

The contest began with the speeches by the students of the special class with limited fluency in Japanese and ended with speeches by the class 8 students. Some students struggled to remember their essays and stumbled, but most carried out their presentations well. After the contest, the Numero Uno

teachers, especially the Nisei teachers, seemed to agonize about evaluating and grading the contestants’ speeches. In the staff meeting after the contest, the Nisei teachers revealed how sorry they had felt for the children who hadn’t won. Ms. Ihara, a longtime Nisei teacher, said, “I know some of my students were unhappy, and some were even teary with anger, when [names of two students] were given the prizes. They said it was unfair [zurui] only one won the first prize. They all had worked hard, you know? … There were other students who had made as great an effort as the winners, so if only one [actually two, the winner and the runner-up] received a prize, those students’ efforts would go unrewarded…. Probably we should grade their attitudes [taido] [toward the contest]; I think it is wrong to evaluate the essay presentations with points. They were at different levels [of fluency in Japanese], so we should take their efforts [doryoku] into consideration.” Ms. Onaga, a fellow Nisei teacher, agreed: “If we consider each student’s unique personality, level [of fluency], and process of preparation for the contest, I think it is insensitive to grade their speeches with points.” In an anonymous evaluation of the contest by the teachers, one respondent, whom I suspect to be one of the Nisei teachers, suggested: “Why don’t we eliminate all individual prizes [for the next year’s contest] and reward everybody with the participation prize? In the speech contest, we should teach them what is important and change their mentality. They should not work hard only to win a prize.” Mr. Satō responded to these critiques from Nisei teachers: “I also heard that there were concerns among [the contestants’] parents that it would be too harsh not to give any award to the children who worked hard on their essays. But as long as the event’s title is a contest [taikai], rather than a presentation [happyō-kai], I think it should remain a competition.”¹⁰Close Unlike Mr. Satō, a Japanese Naichi-jin teacher, the Nisei teachers showed more concern about the students’ motivation than about the writing and speaking skills in Japanese they were able to develop.

Through the annual speech contests, the Okinawan-Bolivian students were pushed by the teachers to improve not so much their writing and public speaking skills in Japanese as their overall work ethic. The contests gave the community members an opportunity to instill their Nisei and Sansei children with the virtues of hard work and self-improvement, which the community members viewed as being threatened by the assimilating forces of Bolivian society. Judging Nisei and Sansei children’s intellectual ability, much less their competence in Japanese language, then, was not only unimportant for Okinawan-Bolivians in Colonia Okinawa, but also potentially counterproductive, because some children might be so disappointed with the outcome of the contest that they would lose their interest in working hard to reach their goals. The differences in the temporary Japanese teachers’ and Nisei teachers’ views of the competitive element of the contest were a telling illustration of how the Okinawan-Bolivian community defined “good” Nikkei Bolivian subjects.

While competitiveness was disdained by Okinawan-Bolivian community members in the case of the Japanese Speech Contest, this was not the case at the All Colonia Okinawa Track Meet, where Nisei and Sansei youth were encouraged to compete fiercely. While the tasks of organizing and running the event were assigned to the outsiders (temporary Naichi-jin Japanese residents and Okinawa Prefecture Program teachers), competition among Okinawan-Bolivians became a focal point for educating the younger members of the community. In so doing, the community members expected to cultivate the intense, if not always cordial, sense of communal bonding among the Nisei and Sansei youth in Colonia Okinawa.

The annual track meet, which the three Colonias (Uno, Dos, and Trés) took turns hosting, was considered the biggest of all the community events in Colonia Okinawa, and the competition was taken seriously by all participants. The daylong event consisted of a wide variety of track races, including sprints, long-distance races, relays of various lengths, and three-legged races. All races were organized by age group (elementary school students, intermediate school students, youth, adults, seniors, and so on) and by sex. Participants were divided into five teams, according to their community affiliations: Colonia Uno A and B (two teams from Colonia Uno, due to its disproportionately larger population than the other two Colonias), Colonia Dos, Colonia Trés, and the Okinawa Prefectural Association of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. Each team selected an athlete for each race, who gained points according to his or her finish, and the teams competed with each other for the total points gained by their members. Each team selected a captain and held numerous training sessions for its members leading up to the event.

The fierce competition among the teams at the track meet was legendary; many older Okinawan-Bolivians recalled that past athletes and spectators had been involved in brawls and had verbally attacked referees and staff members over rulings on the races. I was told that because of the decreasing youth population, caused by Nisei’s dekasegi emigration to Japan since the 1980s, the intensity of the competition had declined, but the strong solidarity within each Colonia and the bitter rivalry and jealousy among the Colonias still fueled

competitiveness.¹¹Close In 2000, when I participated as a staff member, there was a tense moment when the captains of two teams furiously charged at the referees and the event’s chief of staff because of a controversial call during a relay race.

At the staff meeting after the track meet, in which staff and representatives from all five teams gathered to reflect on the event, Ishimine Muneo, an Okinawa Prefecture Program teacher and the event’s staff chief, questioned the format and nature of the track meet. Mr. Ishimine pointed out the competitive imbalance among the three Colonias due to the different population sizes and suggested downsizing the event: “Shouldn’t we reduce the number of competitions? I think this issue also involves a more fundamental question: Is this track meet a recreational event to foster friendship among Okinawan-Bolivians or a serious athletic competition [kyōgi-kai]?” Onaga Miguel of Okinawa Uno immediately responded: “I think we must maintain the track meet as a competitive event. If we make its objective mere recreation, I am worried that the athletes would lose motivation.” Hokama Tōru, the captain of Okinawa Uno A team, agreed: “The track meet should basically retain the form of athletic competition. [Because the event is competitive,] children can receive a kind of discipline from the community’s adults that they cannot get at school.” Finally, the Nichibo Kyōkai president, who was a Colonia Trés resident, claimed that it was the fierce competitiveness that made the Colonia-wide track meet valuable: “Insistence on competition creates unity among Okinawans [Okinawajin]. We can assign a recreational function to the schools’ track meets and serious competitiveness to the All Colonia Okinawa Track Meet. Our pioneering spirit [kaitaku seishin] was nurtured [yashinawareru] by forging of our spirit [seishin no tanren] and by winning [katsu koto].”

The All Colonia Okinawa Track Meet, thus, would remain a competitive event. During this heated discussion, Okinawan-Bolivians emphasized in front of many Japanese Naichi-jin outsiders their affirmation of physical toughness and competitiveness, which they believed to foster collective solidarity, disciplined behavior, and the pioneering spirit of the Okinawan diaspora. This emphasis on physical competition as a positive source for communal solidarity made a stark contrast with the Okinawan-Bolivians’ wariness toward promoting intellectual and linguistic competition at the Japanese speech contest, where they claimed the competitiveness would undermine the harmony among the community members. Linguistic and intellectual prowess was seen by Okinawan-Bolivians as a useful tool for cultivating “good” Nikkei (i.e., Japanese-Bolivian) subjects insofar as it does not undermine the children’s physical ability, which was celebrated as a key component of cultivating “good” Okinawan diasporic subjects.

The work ethic and self-improving attitudes of “good” Nikkei subjects and the competitiveness and winning attitudes of “good” Okinawan subjects that Nisei and Sansei children were expected to develop were, not surprisingly, both posed against what Okinawan-Bolivians viewed as inherently “Bolivian” character and attitudes that were lazy and complacent. Numerous school chores for the students were regarded by the teachers as a systematic tool to prevent the Okinawan-Bolivian children from learning these perceived “Bolivian” attitudes and behaviors.

Numero Uno teachers made sure to enforce school chores as part of the students’ daily routine following Japanese classes. Every afternoon, all Japanese class students cleaned the classrooms, hallways, and bathrooms. After the cleaning was finished, the teachers went to their respective homeroom classrooms to inspect the results before permitting the students to go home. During staff meetings, the Japanese-class teachers repeatedly brought up students’ lack of interest in keeping their school clean as a serious problem.

The teachers saw the students’ disinterest in cleaning and their general unwillingness to do menial tasks as the most telling evidence of their cultural “Bolivianization.” In this case, “Bolivian” culture referred not so much to negative stereotypes of poor non-Nikkei Bolivian laborers in Colonia Okinawa as to the stereotypes of a small group of wealthy non-Nikkei Bolivian farm owners (patrones) who employed domestic workers to do menial tasks around their houses. During the year-end staff meeting, many teachers raised concerns related to cleaning and other school chores:

kawamoto:

It seems like they can’t do most fundamental things [kihon-teki na koto] like cleaning.

onaga:

[Nodding in agreement] It is worse among the upper-graders.

higa:

I wonder if they even clean their rooms at home.

tanaka:

I don’t think they are. Their empleadas [employees, housemaids] are cleaning their rooms.

Some Okinawa Prefecture Program teachers also noticed a similar attitude among students during the teachers’ short stints in Colonia Okinawa. Ahimine Manabu, an Okinawa Prefecture Program teacher at Nueva Esperanza School, was disappointed with the students’ lack of a work ethic and discipline. He said: “They are all really good kids, and I love teaching them, but they haven’t learned self-discipline [kiritsu ga mi ni tsuite inai, literally “discipline is not attached to their bodies”]. I wonder if they have been Bolivianized [Boribiajinka]; they don’t take school chores, like cleaning, seriously.”

The teachers considered mandatory school chores an effective means of preventing Okinawan-Bolivian children from becoming culturally “Bolivianized.” Another Okinawa Prefecture Program teacher, on his departure from Colonia Okinawa in 1989, wrote about how he had tried to change what he described as the Okinawan-Bolivian students’ “little patrones attitudes” by creating a new school chore. He reflected on his effort:

From the [Okinawan-Bolivian] children’s behaviors and comments, I noticed that they were little patrones [chīsana patoron] from the moment of their birth. Realizing the necessity of providing them with some work experience … I created a school garden with the PTA’s help. Through growing organic vegetables and flowers, I wanted to enrich their minds and encourage them to appreciate things around them, nurture a cooperative spirit, enjoy working, and develop a sense of responsibility. (Shimabukuro 1989)

A similar effort was made at Numero Uno School during my fieldwork. Each Japanese homeroom class (from levels one to eight) had its own flower garden and was responsible for caring for it. The students watered the homeroom class’s garden during cleaning time, and the extracurricular activity period was occasionally spent weeding and thinning out overgrown plants. Upperclass students were also asked to help the teachers prepare school and community events during the extracurricular activity periods. They cleaned the community auditorium and the school auditorium, decorated them, and carried the heavy long benches and tables. The students’ parents encouraged the Japanese-class teachers to require their children to do chores and, if they were slacking off, to use corporal punishment. When I met my homeroom students’ parents, they tended to ask more questions about their children’s behavior and attitudes than about their academic performance. The father of one of my students said to me, albeit jokingly, “Sensei [teacher], is my kid behaving well at school? If she is misbehaving or not doing her assignments or chores, please feel free to slap her! [tataite kudasai-ne!]”

From the way Okinawan-Bolivian parents focused on students’ attitudes toward school chores, it appeared that the parents viewed Japanese classes at Numero Uno School more as a venue for disciplining children than as an institution for intellectual development. According to the principal, parents criticized Japanese-class teachers for the large amount of homework they assigned but had little to say about their children’s academic performance at school. At the end of each semester, the Japanese-class teachers held open class sessions, after which they handed out report cards to the parents of their students. Few parents, however, actually showed up on these occasions, and even fewer asked the teachers about their children’s performance in the Japanese classes. This fact combined with the parents’ enthusiastic support for the school’s enforcement of school chores for the students made it apparent that the Japanese classes at Numero Uno School were expected to improve Okinawan-Bolivian children’s behavior and morals rather than to develop their Japanese language skills and expand their Japanese cultural knowledge.

One of the major assignments for Okinawa Prefecture Program teachers was to teach Numero Uno students and other Okinawan-Bolivian community members traditional Okinawan folk arts, such as Eisā dance and sanshin music.¹²Close Members of the Okinawan-Bolivian community saw these lessons in Okinawan folk arts to the Nisei and Sansei children as more than an extracurricular activity; they were considered to be a crucial means to teach Nisei and Sansei youth self-discipline and hard work through physically rigorous training, which would help them develop into “good” Bolivians not simply of Japanese descent, but also of distinctly Okinawan heritage.

Teaching Okinawan folk arts to the Bolivian-born children and grandchildren of Okinawan immigrants was an exciting project for Okinawan teachers who came to Colonia Okinawa because they felt that they were helping the community maintain its proud cultural tradition.¹³Close A former Okinawa Prefecture Program teacher wrote that, after teaching the Numero Uno students Eisā dance throughout his tenure, he was overcome with emotion when he saw his students’ performance at a community event, because he felt that “the Okinawan blood” (Uchinānchu no chi) in their bodies showed through in their dance (Okinawa Daiichi Nichibo-kō 2000a). Gushiken Akira, an Okinawa Prefecture Program teacher, told me, to my surprise, that he was disappointed by how little Okinawan culture Colonia Okinawa had retained. He was eager to improve the quality of Eisā dance in Colonia Okinawa and to introduce shimedaiko (Okinawan drum) to the community. In preparation for major school and community events, such as the school track meet in June and the Okinawa

Harvest Festival in July, he conducted a number of Eisā dance practice sessions for Numero Uno students, members of the Colonia Youth Association, and the Colonia Mothers’ Association. He also handpicked two intermediate school students and intensively trained them to perform the Shishi-Mai (Lion Dance), an acrobatic dance by two people wearing a mythical lion costume, alongside the Eisā dancers and shimedaiko drum lines. Within only eight months after his arrival in Colonia Okinawa, he had trained the Youth Association members and some Numero Uno students well enough to establish a Bolivian chapter of the Okinawan dance and drum performance group for which he was an international coordinator.¹⁴Close The Okinawan-Bolivian community members responded enthusiastically to Mr. Gushiken’s Eisā and shimedaiko lessons for Nisei and Sansei youth. Nichibo Kyōkai purchased a new set of drums, made with locally available materials, and many Nisei and Sansei high school students, who returned to Colonia Okinawa from cities during school breaks, participated dailyin physically demanding practices.

Issei and Nisei parents of Numero Uno and high school students were happy to see their children joining the dance and drum lessons not just because they wanted their children to learn traditional arts of their ancestral land, but also because their children, who often were bored during school breaks, had an

opportunity to invest their time and energy in something they saw as positive. An Issei parent who had a teenager son on the dance team told me: “I am glad that Mr. Gushiken began [Eisā lessons for the Youth Association members]. It is great that [my son] has become so passionate about something, instead of just riding a motorbike around. [Nisei and Sansei teenagers] need something to do to stay out of trouble.” Indeed, high energy filled the Youth Association building, where some twenty high school and intermediate school students participated in dance and drum training conducted by Mr. Gushiken, who did not hesitate to raise his voice in correcting their mistakes. The training was intense and physically demanding; the shimedaiko drums that boys strapped on their bodies were very heavy, and the dance’s karate-like movements were fast and acrobatic. Mr. Gushiken himself was also aware that Eisā practice was not just about teaching the youth a form of folk dance, but also about providing them with discipline and guidance in their lives. He told me: “In Okinawa [Prefecture], too, many of those who joined [his Eisā and drum performance team] used to be rascals [furyō]. Oftentimes, those kids just don’t know what to do with their overwhelming energy and end up becoming members of motorbike gangs [bōsōzoku] or something. Eisā is a means to provide them with an opportunity to get excited about something and get some discipline through practice.”­

Therefore, the Okinawan-Bolivian community members hoped Nisei and Sansei children, by passionately embracing Eisā and shimedaiko and by actively training through rigorous practice, would not only learn and embody the cultural traditions of their ancestral homeland, but also refrain from acquiring negatively perceived aspects of “Bolivian culture,” such as laziness and naughtiness. The older generation expected the younger generations to maintain the “Okinawan spirit” by undergoing strict disciplining and fierce athletic competition; physically demanding exercise under an authority figure was also seen as the key to developing a strong work ethic and self-discipline.

Educational institutions, such as community schools in Colonia Okinawa, were intended to encourage Nisei and Sansei youth to become “good” Nikkei Bolivian subjects who possess what Okinawan-Bolivian community members viewed as fundamentally “Japanese” characteristics, such as a work ethic and aspiration for self-improvement, and the necessary skills to live in Bolivian society, such as speaking and writing abilities in Spanish. By encouraging Nisei and Sansei youth to learn Okinawan folk arts, the institutions also expected the youth to acquire and embody what they viewed as distinctly Okinawan virtues, such as physical and mental toughness, which would presumably keep the youth away from what their parents viewed as corrupting influences of local Bolivian culture and help them carry on the audacious spirit of the Okinawan diaspora.

These ideals of “good” Nikkei Bolivian subjects of Okinawan heritage were constructed and enacted vis-à-vis the perceived influences from multiple subgroups within the school: a threat of cultural “Bolivianization” posed by non-Nikkei Bolivian classmates and Spanish-class teachers; infusion of allegedly authentic “Japanese” language, culture, and morality by Naichi-jin teachers from Japan; and rigorous training in Okinawan traditional arts conducted by Okinawan teachers from Okinawa Prefecture. In relation to each of these three points of reference, Okinawan-Bolivians defined and enacted the ideals that Nisei and Sansei youth were expected to achieve.

In their efforts to articulate ideals for Nisei and Sansei offspring, teachers and other Okinawan-Bolivian community members also helped these children to learn various stereotypes about Japanese, Bolivian, and Okinawan cultures and morals. As we have seen, Okinawan-Bolivians who grew up in Colonia Okinawa and attended its community schools developed highly racialized understandings of Japanese Naichi-jin, Bolivian, and, to a lesser extent, Okinawan characteristics and behavior, which the Okinawan-Bolivians carried with them when they migrated to Japan for dekasegi. Despite being educated to acquire (allegedly) Japanese morals and an Okinawan spirit in order to live as “good” Bolivian nationals, young Okinawan-Bolivians acquired racialized ideas of these distinct group categories, which led them to achieve only a partial and ambiguous belonging in Colonia Okinawa, larger Bolivian society, and urban Japan.