America's Comfort Women

I'll post some pictures and thoughts on today's Wednesday Demonstration for the comfort women tomorrow. But, for today's post, I wanted to share an interesting piece from the Christian Science Monitor.

I'm still in the process of translating and transcribing my first interview, but I'll put some thoughts on it up soon.

In criticizing Japan's history textbooks, Americans should think twice
By Jonathan Zimmerman
May 4, 2005

NEW YORK – Should history textbooks make you love your country? Most people would say "yes." And that's why textbooks inevitably distort the past - even here, in the good old USA. Americans like to think they've reckoned with their history, while other nations remain mired in propaganda and distortion. Americans should think again.

Consider the recent controversy over history textbooks in Japan. Last month, Chinese and Korean protesters took to the streets to condemn a new set of Japanese junior high school texts. The books omit mention of "comfort women," the roughly 200,000 females - mostly from Korea and China - whom the Japanese forced into sexual bondage during World War II.

But scour the textbooks that Americans use in schools, and you won't find any serious discussion of our own comfort women. I speak, of course, of female African-American slaves. Sure, today's textbooks - unlike earlier versions - contain lengthy descriptions and denunciations of American slavery. So far as I know, though, not a single commonly used textbook explains one of the most brutal aspects of the institution: coerced sexual relations. And I'm betting that most Americans would just as soon keep it that way.

Take the example of Harriet Jacobs, who was born into slavery in North Carolina in 1813. She was sold at the age of 12 to James Norcum, who soon began making sexual overtures to her.
As Jacobs later recalled in her memoir, Norcum told her that "I was his property; that I must be subject to his will in all things." And so she was. Although Jacobs occasionally managed to escape her owner's clutches, he did own her. To get sex from her, Norcum sometimes promised her new clothes and other presents; at other times, he simply held a razor to her throat. And that, my fellow Americans, is what we call rape.

You do the math. Between 1850 and 1860, the number of blacks in slavery rose by about 20 percent. But the number of enslaved "mulattoes" - that is, mixed-raced slaves - rose by a remarkable 67 percent, as historian Joel Williamson has calculated. To put it most bluntly: Black slaves were getting lighter in skin, because white owners were raping them. It's really that simple - and that awful.

As the great African-American abolitionist Frederick Douglass recounted in his autobiography, the black female slave was "at the mercy of the fathers, sons, or brothers of her master." Black women were also abused by slave traders, who often raped them before selling them to the next white man - and the next round of sexual coercion. Undoubtedly there were slaves who may have chosen to have sex with their owners. But what does it mean to "choose" sex, when you know that the wrong choice might get you sold, or even killed?

Some masters seem to have treated their slaves like spouses, sharing living quarters and doting upon the children of these liaisons. More often, though, they simply pretended that it all never happened. So did the masters' white wives and daughters, who turned a blind eye to what was occurring right under their noses.

And so do we. How many American children know that Thomas Jefferson, father of our Declaration of Independence, fathered children by his slave? And how many American parents want their children to know that?

Let's imagine that a coalition of West African countries - say, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and the Ivory Coast - staged demonstrations against American history textbooks, demanding that the books include our sordid history of sexual coercion against black people. I think most Americans would scoff at "outside interference" and invoke their own patriotic imperatives.

In other words, they'd behave just like the Japanese. Defending the omission of comfort women from schoolbooks, the Japanese society for History Textbook Reform argued that other nations have no right to define the Japanese past. Only Japan can do that, a statement from the society says, because history aims at "deepening love towards our country."

And that's precisely the problem. Of course the Japanese should admit the terrible harm they inflicted upon Chinese and Korean comfort women between 1937 and 1945. But we also need to acknowledge our own African-American comfort women, who were sexually enslaved for more than two centuries. It might not make us feel more patriotic, but at least it would be true.

• Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history at New York University's Steinhardt School of Education. He is the author of 'Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools.'

some not-so-funny Asian english

So, I don't think making fun of Asian English(or the sound of Asian languages, Rosie) is ever funny. Yes, I know that my Mom has an accent. Yes I know she can link English words together in occasionally bizarre phrases. Thanks for letting me know. But that's a whole nother post...

Since July 17, 2007(about 3 weeks ago), three former comfort women have died without being acknowledged as survivors of the worst incident of mass sex trafficking in modern history, without receiving an apology or reparations from the government of the country that perpetrated this terrible sex crime. Here are their obituaries, all translated into English by Ja-young Kim, and all posted on website for the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan

r.i.p...

Hwang Sun-I
Ms. Hwang Sun-I passed away at 8 o'clock on 6/23. She had stayed in the asylum and recently was in the hospital. Born in Hadong, Kungnam in 1922, Ms. Hwang was forcefully drafted when she was 13 and suffered in Mongolia, Hong Kong, Singapore as a "comfort woman." She came back to Korea when Korea became independent but could not settle in her hometown because of the fact that she was a "comfort woman." She had surgeries last January and February because of the lung cancer. She had neither family nor relatives.Even though there is some good news such as the U.S. House's "comfort women" resolution, victims are still frustrated over Japanese government's evasion of responsibility and deception. In this circumstance, the number of survivors is decreasing everyday. Therefore, it is urgent to solve the "comfort women" issue as soon as possible.

Suk Bok-dal
At about 1 o'clock in the morning, on Thursday, 8/2, Ms. Suk Bok-dal (82) passed away in San-cheong, Kyungnam. At first she wanted to bury her heartburning forever, but, in 2004, reported that she was the victim. The doctor had said that she was getting better, but we heard the sudden notification that she passed away. She had had lots of pains and bitterness in her heart, but she shall rest in peace. She would look down at us with bright smile.

Lee Sun-san
early morning, 8/3

Ms. Suni passed away because of her illness. Sadly enough, her death was right after the adoption of the U.S. resolution that was expected to be the new turning point. Last January 31st, she had an accident so had to get big surgeries for several times. And on August 1st, after the surgery, the doctor told her health was very bad with low blood pressure and blood from the anus. Two days later, she died alone in the Hospital. We are sorry because we could not do anything for her when she was with us. We wish that she now rested in peace.

Ms. Lee Sun-san's brief biography

1922. Born in Gajae
1937. Fifteen years old, she was deceived, drafted to China through Osaka, and forced to be 'comfort woman' for seven yrs
1944. Came back to her hometown, Gajae
1946. Married
1992. Reported that she was the victim
2007.8.3. passed away

rain or shine

The 772nd Wednesday Demonstration.

Every Wednesday in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul.

Since January 8, 1992.

For readers in Seoul: Come out next week, especially, to show your support for a global action week organized by the

Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan

A big turn out today--even bigger than last week--despite the rain.

One of the organizers, sporting their trademark yellow vest, addressing the crowd.

Some of the hal muh nis (grandmothers) under a tent.
(In Korea and the Korean diaspora, you often refer older women as hal muh ni)

This guy kept looking back at my brother and me. I wondered why--and then I saw him join his Korean wife...who had a baby carriage.

Some of the hal muh nis. The organizers handed out ribbons to the crowd and we tied them together, forming several big ribbon circles within the crowd.

Shouting the traditional end-of-demonstration demands for justice. I still haven't heard them clearly enough to figure out what they mean.

Facing History

I woke-up around 11 A.M. this morning and hurried over to Gwanghwamun for the weekly Wednesday demonstrations in solidarity with the surviving comfort women, the women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II. Because I had class at Sogang from 9 A.M.-1 P.M. last summer, I only had the chance to go a couple times, but I'm hoping to go every week while I'm here.

They've been having these protests every Wednesday since January 8, 1992. That's right--for the past 15 years. You'd think the Japanese government would be embarassed by now that they have seven or eight of these hal uh nis(grandmothers) and a hundred or so of their supporters coming out every week simply asking for an official apology for what happened to them. You'd think that it wouldn't have come to the point where the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution yesterday calling on the Japanese government to accept responsibility for its coercion of women into sexual slavery. You'd think that they'd just apologize--not take out a Washington Post advertisement claiming that, actually, the women had worked as licensed prostitutes(I was at work in D.C. reading the Post the day that advertisement was published and was just livid for the rest of day). But, no, the Japanese government has some weird historical memory issues going on(not that most governments don't).

From an academic standpoint, all of this is very interesting to me, this issue of historical/cultural/societal memory of atrocity. Especially the case of World War II. Why is it that Germany throws Holocaust deniers in jail for five years while the Japanese prime minister makes regular visits a war shrine that honors, among others, World War II war criminals. As a student, activist, and human being concerned with dealing with these histories of trauma, I have a lot more questions:

How do we go about changing long-ingrained collective memory?

How do we identify, study, and gauge collective memory?

Where do we look for evidence of collective memory?

How do we trace collective memory formation?

And, above all, how can we explain these variations in the collective memory of World War II atrocities?