Maintaining identity is a fiction
Okinawa is uniquely itself. Not fully Japan. The indigenous inhabitants, the Ryukyuans, traded with China, and for a time, Okinawa was a vassal state to both China and Japan.
It was forced to become a Japanese colony in 1879, and much of its culture, traditions, and language were suppressed by the Meiji government.
After World War 11, the islands were occupied by the United States up until 1972. The US maintains the largest air base outside the United States to this day, to the disagreement of many Ryukyuans.
It is this weird mix of Japanese, Ryukuan and American.
The current rhetoric around the world is that places are losing their identity to immigrants. The call is especially loudest from the established Western white countries, particularly the colonisers. So many of the people seeking refuge are doing so as a direct result of the greedy actions of the colonisers.
When a system is designed to suppress, impoverish, and belittle people, it is natural for people to seek a better life.
For the most part, the act of leaving everything you know behind, carrying only what you can carry, and travelling at extreme risk, is not an act taken lightly.
Escaping from persecution, entrenched systemic poverty, and war is what most of us would do when faced with the same situation.
If we want to address immigration, we must address its root.
Assimilation is another matter. We can do much better at this.
Maintaining identity is a fiction. There is no country on Earth that is as it was 50 years ago, 100 years ago. No human. We have trouble remembering what it was like to live 20 years ago when we did not have a computer in our pocket.
Perhaps the real yearning is to cultivate, create a culture that treasures core human values, values that transfer across so many cultures.
Treating people with respect, offering shelter, dignity, kindness and care. Building lives founded in integrity and truth. Refusing to behave as a superior species over other humans or creatures.
Most especially, refusing to participate in the colonising power story that the other – the immigrant – wants to impose upon your freedoms. A minority, of all backgrounds, including Western White Christians, want this. But the majority want to live in peace. Propagating fear is the strategy of power.
Photo Taken November 12th 2025, Article published November 12th, 2025
