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Visiting Scholar Roundtable – "American Public Diplomacy and Okinawa"

Tuesday, March 5, 2013
12:30 pm - 1:30 pm
The Sigur Center for Asian Studies
1957 E Street, NW; Suite 503
Washington, DC 20052

After World War II ended, Congress passed a foreign aid bill for occupied territories and American military officers assigned to go to Okinawa initiated a huge project with many characteristics of "nation-building:" feeding the people, establishing a bank, and building water pipelines and sewage systems. "It was not an easy task," however, as one army historian describes, they "had to perform against this depressing postwar backdrop of official apathy, curtailed funding, decreasing personnel, regional tensions, and the violent force of nature." Among many projects they launched in Okinawa was a public relations campaign creating a good image of Americans. It could be understood as a case of American public diplomacy (or relations). Was it successful or not? What is the legacy for today?

Hideko Yoshimoto is an associate professor in the department of international studies at Yamaguchi Prefectural University in Japan. She is currently a visiting scholar at the Sigur Center. Her academic areas of interest include journalism and mass communication, public diplomacy, propoganda theory and U.S.-Japan relations.

Please RSVP at go.gwu.edu/hideko.