The Gail Project: An Okinawan-American Dialogue on the Postwar Relationship

Alan Christy
History
UC Santa Cruz

The Gail Project is a collaborative, international public history project exploring the founding years of the American military occupation of Okinawa. The project is inspired by a collection of photographs taken in Okinawa in 1952 by an American Army Captain and dentist named Charles Eugene Gail. Our team of faculty, artists and student researchers at UCSC and University of the Ryukyus (“Ryudai”) developed a publication, a traveling exhibition and a companion digital archive employing innovative multimedia learning tools that are designed to appeal to audiences throughout California, Hawaii and Japan. We conducted archival research and gather oral testimonies critical to the development of this project.