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Of all the U.S. military facilities in Japan, about 70 percent are concentrated in Okinawa.
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Ishikawa Mao has been photographing the island for half a century.
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Specifically, she’s trained her lens on the people who live there.
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Women who work at a hostess club. American servicemen.
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Fishermen from a port town.
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Ishikawa’s looked beyond nationality, social standing, and viewpoint to document the naked truth.
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She’s dedicated her life to photographing Okinawa.
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We ask her what she hopes to convey through her images.
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I feel love for the people I photograph.
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I know many of them personally…
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Most of them are people I know.
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I took their picture because I cared.
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I expressed my love in the form of photos.
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I photograph because it’s fun. Because I want to.
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It makes me want to shoot more, so I go out to see people again.
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April 2025. An exhibition of Ishikawa’s work was held at an international photography festival held in Kyoto.
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On display was her series “Red Flower,” a collection of some of her earliest photos taken in the 1970s.
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She photographed resilient Okinawan women working at a bar catering to Black American servicemen stationed nearby.
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Also on display were more recent images she’d made of residents of Okinawa’s remote islands
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who’ve become wary with the growing presence of Japan’s Self-Defense Force.
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I appreciated the fact that all the pictures are really filled with joy, and yeah, also the way she looked at everyone the same way.
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I mean she doesn’t have stereotypes before taking out the camera. I appreciated that a lot.
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I think Okinawa is a microcosm of Japan’s biggest problems.
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The issues we mainlanders want to turn a blind eye to
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are dumped onto Okinawa.
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But we can’t just keep looking away.
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Ishikawa has long been committed to photographing the lives of Okinawans.
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Now 72, she’s undergone three cancer surgeries and is currently working on rehabilitation.
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I’ve photographed nature before,
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but those shots are supplemental to my shots of people.
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Nature, the ocean, the sky… I’m not interested in those things.
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I only photograph people I like.
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And basically, my subjects are not mainland Japanese, but Okinawan.
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Okinawa, which was once part of the ancient Ryukyu Kingdom, developed its own unique culture.
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In the closing stages of World War II, U.S. forces invaded Okinawa in a fierce ground battle in which civilians were caught in the crossfire.
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Japan’s Imperial General Headquarters, which saw Okinawa as the frontline of mainland defense,
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fought a war of attrition, which claimed the lives of about 94,000 civilians.
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That included the mass suicide of residents, as well as the killing of residents by Japanese troops.
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My grandparents were survivors…
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of that brutal war.
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Growing up, I heard countless stories about the war from my grandfather, my grandmother, my father, and so on.
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And I think it’s pretty much the same for most Okinawan children.
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So I think it’s only natural for people to feel bitterness.
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What mainland Japan did was terrible.
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They abandoned Okinawa so that they could survive.
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After the war, U.S. forces occupied Okinawa and proceeded to build bases.
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Okinawa was returned to Japan in 1972, but the bases remained, occupying 15 percent of the main island’s total area.
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Accidents involving U.S. military aircraft, as well as incidents of sexual violence committed by U.S. soldiers, continue to occur.
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Ishikawa has focused her lens on capturing the lives of people in postwar Okinawa
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amid the ongoing presence of the U.S. military.
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I feel resentment, but that alone can’t sustain a person.
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You need more than that.
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I thought about the people I was photographing and felt that…
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I had to share their stories.
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For my parents’ sake… my grandparents… my ancestors…
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I had to use my voice as a photographer as loudly as I could.
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Ishikawa was born in 1953 in the Okinawan village of Ogimi.
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In high school, she joined the photography club.
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When I didn’t want to go to class, I would go to our clubroom and hide.
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So initially photography wasn’t my main priority.
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But then, something happened that opened my eyes…
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I became determined to take pictures.
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Ishikawa started taking photos in earnest after witnessing a harrowing incident.
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In November 1971, a big demonstration broke out against the Okinawa Reversion Agreement,
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which specified that U.S. military bases would be maintained as they were.
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The protest intensified, ultimately resulting in the death of a riot police officer.
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Ishikawa saw it with her own eyes.
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I thought, why are we Okinawans killing each other?
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It doesn’t matter what the riot police did, killing them wasn’t the answer.
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These were people who were husbands and fathers, people with children.
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Absolutely terrible.
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It made me furious.
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It lit a fire inside of me…
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And ever since, I’ve been taking photos.
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Wanting to capture a portrait of Okinawa through photographs,
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Ishikawa studied the craft in Tokyo before she embarked on her own projects.
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Her style of working involved earning her subjects’ trust, stepping into their world and putting herself in their shoes.
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– Can I go?
– Yes! See you later!
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I’ll come back this evening. Good luck!
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The point is, I’m not just out there taking photos out of anger.
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I take photos out of love…
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Love for Okinawa. Love for the subject in front of me.
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I suppose you could even say… love for humanity.
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Human beings can’t live without that.
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It inspires us to work hard, and learn more about things.
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There’s a major project that Ishikawa’s been working on since 2014.
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The history of Okinawans. Our past.
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It’s called “The Great Ryukyu Photo Scroll.”
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A 30-meter-long cloth featuring staged historical scenes spanning the Ryukyu Kingdom era up to the present day.
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She’s unveiled a new scroll every year, with 10 pieces produced to date.
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Learning about our ancestors gives us perspective on today.
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It’s been eye-opening.
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You see how the past is connected to the present.
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This depicts a fight between samurai and Ryukyu warriors,
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shot next to the planned base.
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The historical invasion of Ryukyu echoes the controversy around the new base.
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The idea is that Japan and the U.S. have controlled Okinawa ever since.
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Ishikawa’s models are friends and acquaintances – fellow Okinawans without any professional training.
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On this day, they reenacted the crash of a U.S. military aircraft.
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We’re staging a photo. I need you to overact!
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Make a face like this! Seriously!
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Confront tragedy with joy.
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Without laughter and dark humor, it’d be unbearable.
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Wonderful! Very convincing!
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All kinds of people doing all kinds of theatrics.
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I really got into it too… as their director!
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People worked really hard to make it feel real.
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You should try it sometime!
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I’d love to film you all in action.
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I’ll have to think about it!
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Part 11. Good idea.
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We’ll have to raise money to fund production.
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Do you have any words to live by?
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Life is ugly yet beautiful. I love human beings.
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I photograph people.
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I like to keep things simple.
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Half the time I fail, half the time I succeed, I would say.
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I do it because it’s fun.
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If it was nothing but pain, I’d stop.
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There’s lots of joyful moments. Taking pictures is fun, and there’s nothing better than that.
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That’s the reason I photograph.
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Interesting moments, joyful moments… they keep me going.
AloJapan.com