Title: Inequality amongst childhoods in a Military setting
Source: My Japanese floormate
Relation: This particular conversation I had with her last night reminded me of the whole equality/inequality concept between cultures because of the two cultures involved. Growing up on Okinawa as a civilian, my floormate went to school at the military base but otherwise lived as a ordinary japanese girl. She learned english, and became knowledgable of a little more of american culture than most of her civilian friends, but what she pointed out to me and what also stuck out to me the most was how her life and her perception of culture was influenced by her “on the fence” lifestyle, caught between being a japanese girl and a military girl.
Commentary: My floormate had only one friend that lasted more than two years during her school career on Okinawa. As one of the only civilian students of the on-base school in the military camp, she was the only one in her class to routinely still be on the island at the end of the year. Despite living the “American life” of a military base student, she was always excluded as the one japanese person in the class. When she went home, however, her lack of enrollment in a Japanese school meant she was never in close contact with any of the civilian kids who went to Japanese school. To the civilians, she was an American, and to the Americans, she was a Japanese. Since coming to America she has become very disillusioned about her past, and feels that her life has taken two paths, neither of which are complete. Her perception of “Culture” is split between these two paths, and neither one are adaquate to her.
