Denny Tamaki

is a Japanese politician and the current Governor of Okinawa Prefecture since August 2018. Tamaki was a member of the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly for Okinawa City from 2002 to 2005 and became the first Amerasian member of the Japanese House of Representatives as the representative for Okinawa Prefecture's 3rd district from 2009 to 2012 and 2014 to 2018. Tamaki was elected governor as an independent in the 2018 Okinawa gubernatorial election following the untimely death of Governor Takeshi Onaga. He was re-elected again in 2022. Early life was born on 13 October 1959 in Yonashiro (now part of Uruma), Okinawa under American civil administration to an Okinawan mother and an American father who was a member of the U.S. Marine Corps and left Okinawa before he was born. Tamaki changed his legal name to at 10 years of age, with Denny (デニー, Denī) being a nickname kept since childhood. Tamaki has never met his father, and his mother remained single throughout his youth and destroyed most materials related to his father. Tamaki searched for his father, but was unsuccessful in locating him. Although Tamaki rarely discusses his American background, he describes himself as embodying Okinawa's predicament as a host for United States military personnel. Tamaki left Okinawa to attend a trade school in Tokyo and returned afterward, working as a radio disk jockey for several years.