Marisa Guerrero is the Michiko N. Wilson Prize Winner of 2024-2025 - Congratulations!

Marisa Guerrero's DMP thesis, entitled  "Okinawan Trauma Culture: Depictions of Trauma in Translated Works of Okinawan Literature and English-Language Literature about Okinawa," considers how popular culture tends to depict populations adversely impacted by imperial power struggles through the dynamics of trauma and victimization, and it analyzes how Anglophone views of Okinawa—as evinced through works written in English about Okinawa and the selections of literary works translated into English from Japanese—fit this paradigm. It then gives close readings of literary works written by contemporary Okinawan authors which present a range of topics and perspectives that defy these stereotypes, and it suggests the richness of Okinawan culture today as much more than the legacies of war.