Meet Rain Cloud - He stopped by our CHamoru Roots Genealogy booth at the CHamoru Day Festival, June 21, 2025 in Tacoma, Washington and shared with a familiar story related to what I have been recently tracking. He is a Native American with CHamoru Roots.
His mother, a CHamoru, who became an orphaned child on Saipan during the tragedy of World War II. She had siblings, but thinks they too were unfortunately killed on Saipan during the war. She was adopted by an Okinawan family that eventually migrated to the United States. He does not know his mother’s original surname, but she was born in Garapan, Saipan. She recalls being on the island of Yap, but not much else is known about that.
Some historical background that is linked to Rain Cloud’s story…After World War II many of the Japanese, Okinawan and Korean people and their families that were brought in as laborers during the Japanese administration (post-World War I/Japan mandate under the United Nations), were repatriated back to their countries or origin. Granted, some of those Japanese, Okinawan and Korean families were allowed to stay. Also, we are reminded that the Ryuku Islands, which Okinawa was a part of, and the Ogasawara Islands (where you find descendants with CHamoru Roots, but that’s another story), were retained and governed by the U.S. Those islands remained under the administration of the U.S. and were not fully restored back to the the sovereignty of Japan (1971 Okinawa Reversion Agreement) until 1972.
I present this story out here in hopes that more pieces of the puzzle will trickle in to help him find his mother’s long lost family and reconnect him to part of his heritage. Many children were orphaned throughout the entire Mariana Islands during World War II. They and their descendants feel their spirit calling them to learn more of their CHamoru heritage.
