Dunedin: Associate Professor Jacqueline Leckie, of the Department of Anthropology, Gender and Sociology, University of Otago is tracing the children of American servicemen born to women in Fiji during World War II. She also wants to make contact with people who recall these war years and especially how Indo Fijians interacted with the American forces in Fiji.
This is part of a larger project: Mothers' darlings: Children of indigenous women and World War Two American servicemen in New Zealand and South Pacific societies.
It is funded by the Marsden Fund of the Royal Society of NZ, with lead researcher Professor Judy Bennett, University of Otago.
Like a human tsunami, World War II brought two million American servicemen to the South Pacific where they left a human legacy of some thousands of children, most born out of wedlock. Histories of these indigenous, colonized mothers and their children are missing from standard accounts of New Zealand and other Pacific Islands. Our research aims to recover this neglected human element of the massive demographic transformations that the war induced. It will interrogate the nature of wartime intimate encounters, colonial, institutional and racist barriers to stable relationships and marriage, the fate of children and grandchildren, and long term effects of mixed parentage. Research sites are in New Zealand, Tonga, Fiji, Samoa, Solomons, Vanuatu, Kiribati, Tuvalu and Cook Islands.
Despite primary and secondary accounts of Fiji and World War II, little is known about intimate relationships with local women and children conceived during the American occupation. The fact that Fiji’s Governor (unsuccessfully) sought maintenance for local women pregnant by US men in Fiji, and the profound dislocation to communities in Nadi with the presence of c. 8,000 American troops there strongly indicates that there must have been many ex-nuptial pregnancies in wartime Fiji. Women in World War II Fiji have not been addressed. Nothing is known of the fate of children of these wartime relationships. The narratives of these women and their children remain hidden from history. Much may well be lost entirely if not researched now.
We do not know of any children with parents who were American GIs and Indo Fijian women. But it seems highly probable that there were some births because of the huge numbers of Americans stationed on the Western side of Viti Levu during 1942-3. There may also be other ‘intimacies’ between the soldiers and Indo Fijians. However Indo Fijian families had high expectations of morality and the US military administration did not permit ‘fraternization’ with local women (Europeans excluded).
Associate Professor Leckie has spent several years teaching and researching in and publishing on Fiji, New Zealand and India. She recently edited Development in an Insecure and Gendered World (Ashgate). Other books include Indian Settlers. The Story of a New Zealand South Asian Community. (Otago University Press, 2007); To Labour with the State: (Otago University Press 1997); and co-editing Labour in the South Pacific.
Jacqui is seeking assistance in this research – to uncover a forgotten aspect of Fiji’s heritage. Strict confidentiality is assured. This project has been endorsed by the University of Otago Ethics Committee.
If you would like to participate in this project please contact Jacqui Leckie at:
email: jacqui.leckie@otago.ac.nz
Phone: 64-3-4798760
mobile: 021 134 4522
or write to
Anthropology Department
2nd Floor Sir John Richardson Building, Castle Street
University of Otago
Box 56, Dunedin
New Zealand
fax: 64 3 479 9095