Photographer Mao Ishikawa, whose work frequently depicts personal, political and racial intersections in her native Okinawa, has published a new volume revisiting her 1970s portraits of Japanese bar hostesses and U.S. servicemen near the Kadena Air Base.
"Red Flower: The Women of Okinawa" ("Akabana: Okinawa no Onna"), Ishikawa's first book with a U.S. publisher, is a collection of 80 black-and-white photos taken from 1975 to 1977 when the photographer worked in bars frequented by African-American soldiers in the entertainment districts of Koza, now the city of Okinawa, and Kin.
"The original idea was taking photos of GIs (at the bars), but when I started I grew interested in the girls working there, and so this series includes more photos of them," Ishikawa said at one of her New York events this spring marking the book's launch.