Atsuki Hibi in Kyampu Hansen (Hot Days in Camp Hansen).

Mao Ishikawa and Toyomitsu Higa

Atsuki Hibi in Kyampu Hansen (Hot Days in Camp Hansen).

Okinawa

Aman Shuppan

1982

10 1/8 x 7 ½ in., 162 pp, softcover with dust jacket and bellyband, photographically illustrated black endpapers, signed by Ishikawa. Text by Ishikawa, photographs by Ishikawa and Higa.

This book is both an homage to the women who worked in bars catering to US servicemen in Okinawa, and a protest book highlighting Japanese resentment towards the military presence in their hometown. They photographed the working conditions and relationships that developed between their friends and the mostly Black clientele. The importance of this book stems from the fact that few women were afforded the ability to publish their work in Japan until the 1990s, and this subject matter is still relevant.

From the collection of Jeffrey Gutterman