Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Creating a Collective Memory of the Comfort Women in the USA

  • Published:
International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

We offer a new perspective on the recent controversies surrounding the memorialization of comfort women in several American cities by shifting the focus from bilateral historical grievances and tensions between the national governments of Japan and South Korea, to the grassroots and transnational politics involved in the siting of these monuments. We find that the construction of a transnational Korean identity among the Korean diaspora in the USA, and their creation of a collective public memory of the comfort women are evidence of their growing political consciousness and engagement in American civic life, and it is notable that most of the leadership and membership of the main organizations involved are women. These women are part of the global feminist and human rights movements which advocate for the inclusion and recognition of the experiences of women during wartime and colonization. Therefore, the memorials are not only symbols of historic reconciliation and remembrance, but of the skillful and strategic organizing, activism, and leadership of Asian Americans. This article also shows how the movement is evolving through the development of educational and curricular initiatives in honor of the comfort women in the USA.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. “Comfort woman” is a euphemism, used in Japanese historical documents, that has become the most common term in the international system to refer to these women. These women came from all over Asia and Japan’s empire and occupied lands, which included China, Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia. Some literature uses the term “sex slaves” while the term “halmonie” (or “grandma”) is frequently used in South Korea and among the Korean diaspora.

  2. Although Chinese and other Asian women were also held in sexual servitude to the Japanese Imperial Army, Korean Americans have taken the lead on this movement in the USA. We argue that it would not have progressed so far without that leadership.

  3. Mike Honda was the main sponsor of US House of Representatives Resolution 121, which called on Japan to acknowledge and apologize for the use of comfort women during World War II.

  4. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/korean-immigrants-united-states

  5. Korean Americans had to reflect on their place in American civic life after the Los Angeles Riots in 1992. In Los Angeles, tensions arose between the Korean immigrant community that came after 1965, and the mostly African American communities in which they established their small businesses. Tensions came to a head in 1992 with two events: the killing of fifteen-year old Latasha Harlins by female Korean convenience store owner, Soon Ja Du, over an alleged stolen bottle of juice and the acquittal of four white Los Angeles Police Department officers who used excessive force while arresting an unarmed black man, Rodney King. These events ignited years of racial resentment by the Black community against the Korean immigrant merchants in their neighborhoods, leading to several days of rioting and looting, and imposed curfews. It is estimated that about 50% of the damage to private property was to Korean-owned businesses. The lack of police protection for Korean owned businesses during the Los Angeles Riots, forced the Korean community in Los Angeles to think more about their place in American politics and racial dynamics, social justice, and the need for greater civic participation to protect their interests and rights (Park 1995; Kim 2012).

  6. McCarthy Interview.

  7. Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress http://www.ncrr-la.org/index.php

  8. “Nikkei Resisters Endorse Comfort Women Justice Coalition”. Rafu Shimpo: Los Angeles Japanese Daily News. March 9, 2018. https://www.rafu.com/2018/03/nikkei-resisters-endorse-comfort-women-justice-coalition/

  9. Levine, Brittany. “Buena Park reconsiders comfort women statue after Glendale fuss.” Los Angeles Times. July 29, 2013.

    http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-buena-park-comfort-women-20130729-story.html .

  10. Hasunuma’s notes from the Comfort Women Teach-in, tour, and discussion March 29, 2018 at the Association for Asian American Studies meeting.

  11. McCarthy interview, August 8, 2017.

  12. McCarthy interview with Judy Cho, Program Director, ALPHA Education, August 22, 2017.

  13. The Teachers Resource Guide was available for purchase at the Association for Asian American Studies walking tour, teach-in, and luncheon Hasunuma attended on March 29, 2018. There was an additional panel on March 30th organized by Grace Yoo, Sung Sohn, and Eric Mar about teaching the history of the comfort women in high schools and colleges. More information about the foundation can be found at http://www.e4sjf.org/ .

  14. A fourth memorial was erected on public land in New Jersey at the time this article was going to press.

  15. McCarthy interview, August 8, 2017.

  16. Ibid.

  17. McCarthy interview, August 18, 2017.

  18. Hasunuma, March 29, 2018, Comfort Woman teach-in, tour, and luncheon in San Francisco with Eric Mar, Judge Julie Tang (retired), Grace Yoo, Kei Fisher, and the leadership of Eclipse Rising.

  19. Dyana Bagby. “Brookhaven relocates ‘comfort women’ memorial to main Blackburn park.” Reporter Newspapers. http://www.reporternewspapers.net/2017/09/20/comfort-women-memorial-relocated-main-blackburn-park-brookhaven/ .

  20. Bo Emerson. 2017. Civil rights center cancels ‘comfort women’ memorial. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. March 3. http://www.ajc.com/news/civil-rights-center-cancels-comfort-women-memorial/VrjGHYMBiu218jYZDdJWjI/ .

  21. McCarthy interview, August 18, 2017.

  22. McCarthy interview with Judge Lillian Sing (Ret.), August 18, 2017.

  23. McCarthy interview, August 8, 2017.

  24. KACE also spearheaded efforts to erect the first Comfort Women memorial in the USA, in Palisades Park, NJ, and the later effort to have a Comfort Women memorial included in the circle of freedom in front of the Bergen County courthouse in New Jersey.

  25. McCarthy interview with Dr. Dan Leshem, Director of the Center, May 7, 2015.

  26. McCarthy interview, May 26, 2015.

  27. Hasunuma interview, September 28, 2017.

  28. https://montgomerycountymd.galaxydigital.com/need/detail/?need_id=342812.

  29. Hasunuma interview, September 28, 2017.

  30. Quoted in Victoria Kim. “‘Comfort Women’ and a lesson in how history is shaped in California textbooks.” Los Angeles Times. February 7, 2016.

  31. Ibid.

  32. Both authors of this article were in attendance at the international conference on the comfort women hosted by Queens College on Oct. 13, 2017, when Bronstein, Lee, Hahm, and others gave their remarks.

  33. Eclipse Rising, the Zainichi Korean activist group with roots in the San Francisco and Oakland area, played a major role in putting forth the resolution and developing the programming for the tour, teach-in, and related panels on the comfort women.

  34. Hasunuma’s visit to The War and Women’s Human Rights Museum in Seoul, June 25, 2017.

  35. Hasunuma interview with Julie Jungsil Lee, September 28, 2017.

  36. The comfort women monument in Fort Lee, New Jersey is especially interesting because it was initiated by a group of Korean high school students (two young women led the effort). The monument is at Constitution Park and is placed directly across from a US War Veteran’s memorial (Hasunuma’s visit to the monument July 10, 2018).

  37. https://www.dimokimfactory.org/

  38. Hasunuma interview with Phyllis Kim on August 31, 2017 in Burbank, CA.

  39. Hasunuma follow-up email interviews with Phyllis Kim and Julie Jungsil Lee on February 8, 2018.

  40. Hasunuma follow-up interview via email on February 8, 2018.

  41. Hasunuma interview with Phyllis Kim on August 31, 2017.

  42. ibid.

  43. Linda Hasunuma interviews with Phyllis Kim, August 31, 2017 in Burbank, CA; and skype interview with Julie Jungsil Lee, September 28, 2017.

  44. See, for instance, Halpin (2013).

References

  • Ahn, Y. (2008). Japan’s ‘comfort women’ and historical memory: The neo-nationalist counter-attack. In The power of memory in modern Japan (pp. 32–53). DOI. https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9781905246380.i-382.22.

  • Appadurai, A. & Breckenridge, C. A. (1988). “Why Public Culture?” Public Culture 1 (1, Fall): 5–9

  • Ashplant, T. G., Dawson, G., & Roper, M. (2005). The politics of war memory and commemoration. In Routledge studies in memory and narrative.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berger, T. U. (2012). War, guilt, and world politics after world war II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Building the ‘Comfort Women’ Statue in San Francisco. (2018). Comfort Women Justice Coalition Booklet Published March, 2018, and distributed at the Comfort Women memorial tour and teach-in at the Association for Asian American Studies meeting March 29, 2018.

  • David, L. (2014). Mediating international and domestic demands: mnemonic battles surrounding the monument to the fallen of the wars of the 1990s in Belgrade. Nationalities Papers, 42(4), 655–673. https://doi.org/10.1080/00905992.2013.874995.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Enloe, C. (2000). Maneuvers: The international politics of militarizing women’s lives. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Field, N. & Yamaguchi, T. (2015). ‘Comfort woman’ revisionism comes to the US: symposium on the revisionist film screening event at central Washington University.” Asia Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, 13(22), Number 1, June 03, 2015.

  • Gluck, C. (2007). Operations of memory: comfort women and the world. In S. M. Jager & R. Mitter (Eds.), Ruptured histories: war, memory, and the post cold war in Asia. Harvard University Press.

  • Goldstein, J. (2001). War and gender: how gender shapes the war system and vice versa. Cambridge University Press.

  • Halpin, D.P. (2013). Palisades Park and the first amendment. U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS Policy Brief. May 29, 2013.

  • Hirano, K. (2015). A reflection on Uemura Takashi’s talk at UCLA. In Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus Ithaca, NY: April, 2015. Retrieved from www.japanfocus.org/-Katsuya-Hirano/4363/article.htm

  • Kaufman, J. P., & Williams, K. P. (2007). Women, the state, and war: a comparative perspective on citizenship and nationalism. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Keck, M. E., & Sikkink, K. (1998). Activists beyond borders: advocacy networks in international politics. Cornell University Press.

  • Kim, R. M. (2012). Violence and trauma as constitutive elements in Korean American racial identity formation: The 1992 L.A. riots/Insurrection/Saigu. Ethnic & Racial Studies, 35(11), 1999–2018.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Koyama, E. (2015). The U.S. as ‘major battleground’ for ‘comfort woman’ revisionism: The screening of Scottsboro girls at central Washington University. The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, 13(22), No. 2, June 03, 2015.

  • Leggewie, C. (2008). A tour of the battleground: the seven circles of pan-European memory. Soc Sci Res, 75, 217–234 No. 1, Spring 2008.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mackie, V. (2004). Shifting the axis: feminism and the transnational imaginary. State/nation/transnation: Perspectives on transnationalism in the Asia Pacific S.M.A.K Fakhri, et al., Taylor & Francis (Eds).

  • McCarthy, M. (2018). The power and limits of the transnational ‘comfort women’ movement. In M. M. McCarthy (Ed.), Handbook of Japanese foreign policy. Routledge.

  • McCarthy, M. & Hasunuma, L. (2018). Coalition building and mobilization: Case studies of the comfort women memorials in the United States. Politics, Groups, and Identities (forthcoming).

  • Park, K. (1995). The re-invention of affirmative action: Korean immigrants’ changing conceptions of African Americans and Latin Americans. Urban Anthropology and Studies of Cultural Systems and World Economic Development, 24(1/2), 59–92. (SPRINGSUMMER, 1995), Published by: The Institute, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40553279.

  • Roberman, S. (2007). Commemorative activities of the great war and the empowerment of elderly immigrant soviet Jewish veterans in Israel. Anthropol Q, 80(4), 1035–1064.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Saito, H. (2016). The history problem: The politics of war commemoration in East Asia. University of Hawaii Press. In Kindle edition (kindle locations).

    Google Scholar 

  • Soh, S. C. (2008). The comfort women: sexual violence and postcolonial memory in Korea and Japan. The University of Chicago Press.

  • Tarrow, S. (2005). The new transnational activism. Cambridge University Press.

  • Teacher’s resource guide: ‘Comfort women’ history and issues. (2018). Published by the Education for Social Justice Foundation.

  • Ward, T., & Lay, W. (2016). The comfort women controversy: not over yet. East Asia, 33, 255–269. https://doi.org/10.1007/s1240-016-9260z.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yoshiaki, Y. (1995). Comfort women: Sexual slavery in the Japanese military during World War II. Translated by Suzanne O’Brien. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

Interviews

  • Hasunuma e-mail follow-up interview with Phyllis Kim on February 8, 2018.

  • Hasununa e-mail follow-up interview with Julie Jungsil Lee February 8–11, 2018.

  • Hasunuma interview with Phyllis Kim on August 31, 2017 in Burbank, California.

  • Hasunuma skype interview with Julie Jungil Lee on September 28, 2017.

  • McCarthy phone interview with Dan Leshem on May 7, 2015.

  • McCarthy phone interview with Jimin Kim on May 26, 2015.

  • McCarthy phone interview with Phyllis Kim on August 8, 2017.

  • McCarthy phone interview with Lillian Sing and Julie Tang on August 18, 2017.

  • McCarthy skype interview with Judy Cho on August 22, 2017.

  • Both authors attended the “Tenth Anniversary of the Passage of the House Resolution 121” gathering on July 27, 2017 (video of the event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwIwdK9e0qI) and the “International Conference on the Redress Movement for the Victims of the Japanese Military Sex Slaves” at Queens College, New York, October 13–14, 2017.

  • Hasunuma visited the 6th Annual Commemoration of Comfort Woman Day exhibition at the Glendale Public Library on August 31, 2017; the War and Women’s Human Rights Museum in Seoul on June 25, 2017; a walking tour and teach-in on the comfort women memorial in San Francisco hosted by the Association for Asian Am Stud and a Zainichi Korean activist group, Eclipse Rising, on March 29, 2018; and the comfort women memorial in Fort Lee, New Jersey on July 10, 2018.

  • The Apology. Retrieved from http://www.nfb.ca/film/apology/

  • “Comfort Woman: A New Musical”. Retrieved from https://www.dimokimfactory.org/about-1

  • A press conference held in San Francisco City Hall on September 16, 2015 hosted by San Francisco Supervisor Eric Mar to welcome Grandma Yong Soo Lee, a WW 2 “Comfort Women” Survivor. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0oE2VPs8mc.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Public and International Affairs, University of Bridgeport, Bridgeport, CT, 06604, USA

    Linda Hasunuma

  2. Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa, USA

    Mary M. McCarthy

Authors
  1. Linda Hasunuma
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Mary M. McCarthy
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Linda Hasunuma.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Hasunuma, L., McCarthy, M. Creating a Collective Memory of the Comfort Women in the USA. Int J Polit Cult Soc 32, 145–162 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-018-9302-1

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-018-9302-1

Keywords

Search

Navigation