Thomas Chung - Böcker

Younger-Generation Korean Experiences in the United States: Personal Narratives on Ethnic and Racial Identities compares the formation of the ethnic identities of two distinct cohorts of Korean Americans. Through personal essays, the book explores four influential factors of ethnic identity: retention of ethnic culture; participation in ethnic social networks; links to the mother country and its global power and influence; and experiences with racial prejudice and discrimination. The essays reflect certain major changes between the two cohorts—the first growing up in the 1960s and early 1970s and the second growing up during the 1980s and early 1990s— and proves how an increase in the Korean population and in the number of ethnic organizations helped the second-cohort Korean Americans retain their cultural heritage in a more voluntary, and therefore meaningful, way. This book’s combination of first-hand experiences and critical analysis makes it a valuable resource for studies of ethnicity, culture, identity formation, and the Asian-American experience.

This book examines the redress movement for the victims of Japanese military sexual slavery in South Korea, Japan, and the U.S. comprehensively. The Japanese military forcefully mobilized about 80,000-200,000 Asian women to Japanese military brothels and forced them into sexual slavery during the Asian-Pacific War (1932-1945). Korean "comfort women" are believed to have been the largest group because of Korea’s colonial status. The redress movement for the victims started in South Korea in the late 1980s. The emergence of Korean "comfort women" to society to tell the truth beginning in 1991 and the discovery of Japanese historical documents, proving the responsibility of the Japanese military for establishing and operating military brothels by a Japanese historian in 1992 accelerated the redress movement for the victims. The movement has received strong support from UN human rights bodies, the U.S. and other Western countries. It has also greatly contributed to raising people’s consciousness of sexual violence against women at war. However, the Japanese government has not made a sincere apology and compensation to the victims to bring justice to the victims.