01/15/2026
"Okinawa and Japan are not the same thing!" I have heard this time and again. While such identity politics are valid among some, as a Japanese American this is more nuanced within the generational diaspora. Although not Okinawan by ancestry, I practice karatedo as an expression of my JA identity--Okinawan people and culture being an integral part of the Nikkei community.
At the turn of the 20th century, contract laborers were recruited from Japan--both Uchinanchu (Okinawan) & Naichi ("mainland" Japanese)--to work the plantations in Hawaii. Many laborers, including my ancestors from Kumamoto & Fukuoka, migrated to the mainland as itinerant farmhands once their contracts had been fulfilled. Similar stories abound in Canada & South America.
Prior to WWII, my family had lived in Fresno & SF J-towns, and LA's Little Tokyo--a misnomer as few residents of the area were actually from Tokyo. For instance, Kenden Yabe--son of legendary Okinawan karateka Kentsu Yabu--lived in Little Tokyo. My family was from the Kyushu countryside, with a dialect nearly unintelligible to a Tokyoite.
During WWII, JAs both Uchinanchu and Naichi fought side-by-side in the segregated U.S. Army units of the 100th/442nd/522nd; they translated in the Pacific with the MIS; our families were unjustly and forcibly removed from their homes by the U.S. military and incarcerated together behind barbed wire in desert camps.
Having begun training in a non-Okinawan karate system in 1989, in 1998 I moved to LA and was introduced to Okinawan Shorinryu in Little Tokyo, just up the block from where my family had lived 60 years prior. Ethnicity has no bearing on one's ability as a budoka, let me be clear. But personally, donning a keikogi is nevertheless an expression of my heritage culture.
In their youths, my grandfather and uncles studied kendo and judo. Budo has therefore never held the mysticism of comic book superhuman ability or paramilitary hierarchy for me. They are human disciplines and art forms meant for self-protection, maintaining health, building community, and keeping oneself "on the rails." Okinawan, Japanese . . . Nikkei is Nikkei and regardless of origin or who expresses it, good karate is good karate.
Enjoy training and train seriously, but try not to take yourself too seriously. (Photo descriptions captioned in each photo.)
