Prostitution in US Occupied Japan from Class, Race and Gender Perspectives-With Testimonies by former GIs

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This research project intends to explore the meanings of the US occupation in post-World War II Japan. Specifically, it focused on the Recreation and Amusement Association, a Japanese government-supported organization to "comfort" occupying troops of Allied Powers, mainly the United States. and investigated the mechanism that involved a number of Japanese women in a large-scale prostitution system. It also attempted to explain in general and theoretical terms the sexual relationship between the occupying forces of the US and women in the occupied country of Japan. Although I was not able to collect testimonies of as many former GIs as I had wished, I think I produced works that could contribute to the study on the US occupation of Japan and the relationship between the military and sexuality. On the whole, the study demonstrates the following. First, the political and military power relationship between the US the ruler and Japan the ruled ; second, the meaning of thee relationship between different races, the white and the colored Asian ; third, the role of patriarchal gender in prostitution ; and fourth, the role of the Japanese class and the American middle-class consciousness in prostitution.This study does not end with this project. I will continue to conduct oral histories of former GIs who stayed in Japan immediately after the end of World War II. I believe that with their testimonies, along with the documents and memoirs left by leading people in the US military, US and Japanese governments, Japanese business and writers of both countries, I will be able to better understand the reality of the US occupation of Japan from the bottom up.