An Okinawan photographer, Mao Ishikawa spent her early 20s working as a barmaid in establishments catered specifically to African American GIs stationed in Okinawa. “There was love,” as the tagline reads; her photography book, “Red Flower – The Women of Okinawa” captured the diaristic intimacy of friendships, love affairs, and wild nights shared amongst her social circle of that time. Looking back on those photographs and Okinawa in the wake of its reversion to Japan in 1972 after the U.S. rule, Mao takes us on the journey of her ardent-photographer life through history, politics, racism, love, empowerment, and raison d’être.
