Not far from the Bolivian city of Santa Cruz lies the curiously out-of-place Japanese farming district of Colonia Okinawa. Many of those living there are descendants of Okinawan farmers, forced off their land – by bulldozers or at bayonet point – by American soldiers in the 1950s. Some of the dispossessed were persuaded to make a new life in Bolivia. But when they arrived, instead of the fertile land they had been promised, they were dumped in the jungle where many died of hunger or unfamiliar diseases. Only the more fortunate made it on to Colonia Okinawa, now considered a model of Bolivian development.
離玻利維亞圣克魯斯城不遠，有一個與周圍環境格格不入的日式農區，稱為“沖繩墾殖區”(Colonia Okinawa)。許多生活在那里的居民都是日本沖繩島農民的后裔——上世紀50年代，美國士兵用推土機和刺刀，將他們的先輩趕出了家園。一部分失去土地的沖繩人被勸服，到玻利維亞開始新生活。可一旦踏上該國土地，他們并沒有得到美方許諾的肥沃土地，而是被扔到了熱帶叢林中，許多人因饑餓或陌生的疾病而喪命。只有比較幸運的生還者才堅持到“沖繩墾殖區”落成的那一天，如今，這里已被推崇為玻利維亞的一個發展典范。