This paper aims to examine how the mixed-bloods in Micronesia (half-Japanese andhalf-Micronesians) were treated under the Japanese administration and how they have recognized theirJapanese descent in the postwar period up until now. Especially, the cases in Palau, which was thecenter of Japanese administration and where a considerable number of the mixed-bloods were born, areinvestigated. Almost all of the mixed-bloods had native mothers and Japanese fathers, who wereimmigrant workers, merchants, fishermen, government officials, military men and so forth. Most ofthem were illegitimate children, brought up by mothers and their relatives, and also attended the publicschools (kogakko) for native islanders (tomin). At the same time, a few of them were legitimate children,brought up by their parents and attended the separate elementary schools (shogakko) for Japanesechildren. Rarely did mixed-blood children attend school in mainland Japan. Some Japanese writers andscholars, especially in the 1940s, insisted that these mixed-bloods should be brought up as Japanese lestthey should be discriminated by both Japanese immigrants and indigenous people or lest they shoulddisturb the identity of Japanese people.After the Pacific War, all of the Japanese immigrants were forced to evacuate from Micronesia.Most of the mixed-bloods were left in their islands with their mothers, while some legitimate childrenwent to Japan with their fathers. Some of them have been in Japan ever since, while others returned totheir islands because of their difficulty in adjusting to Japan. In spite of the drastic changes in theirsocial life, many mixed-bloods led successful life as businessmen, politicians, and traditional chiefs inpostwar Micronesia. As time passed, the mixed-bloods tried to reconstruct their relationship to Japan.Some mixed-bloods in Palau established the Palau Cherry Blossom Association (Palau Sakura Kai) inthe middle of the 1960s. The main aims of this association were to receive Japanese groups visitingPalau for spirit-consoling services (ireidan), to assist mixed-blood children to search for their fathers orpaternal relatives in Japan, and to help each other as the mixed-bloods were faced with some difficultiesresulting from the separations of their families.Even though the association has been often represented as a pro-Japanese or an ethnic Japanesegroup in the records by Japanese visitors, it does not advocate any political views. Its membership is soloose that some native Palauans and Japanese residents in Palau have joined it. Therefore, the PalauCherry Blossom Association does not contribute to the fostering of a rigid or exclusive sense ofJapanese identity. Generally, the mixed-bloods spend their daily lives as Palauans who are the membersof ambi-matrilineal kin groups (kebliil), without clear and rigid ethnic identity as Japanese. On the otherhand, they are not the same as ordinary Palauans, as some of them have been buried at the Japanesecemetery in Koror. The mixed-bloods in Palau collectively remember their Japanese origin, iftemporarily, in such an occasion as a memorial service held by Japanese groups, and thus they sharetheir experiences of suffering after the Pacific War with Japanese.
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