Authors: Ji-Yeon Yuh
ISBN-13: 9780814796993, ISBN-10: 0814796990
Format: Paperback
Publisher: New York University Press
Date Published: April 2004
Edition: 1st Edition
Ji-Yeon Yuh is Assistant Professor of History at Northwestern University. Her work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Miami Herald, and the Baltimore Sun, as well as in major newspapers in Japan and Korea.
Since the beginning of the Korean War in 1950, nearly 100,000 Korean women have immigrated to the United States as the wives of American soldiers. Based on extensive oral interviews and archival research, Beyond the Shadow of the Camptowns tells the stories of these women, from their presumed association with U.S. military camptowns and prostitution to their struggles within the intercultural families they create in the United States.
Historian Ji-Yeon Yuh argues that military brides are a unique prism through which to view cultural and social contact between Korea and the U.S. After placing these women within the context of Korean-U.S. relations and the legacies of both Japanese and U.S. colonialism vis á vis military prostitution, Yuh goes on to explore their lives, their coping strategies with their new families, and their relationships with their Korean families and homeland. Topics range from the personalthe role of food in their livesto the communal Relayed with warmth and compassion, this is the first in-depth study of Korean military brides, and is a groundbreaking contribution to Asian American, women's, and "new" immigrant studies, while also providing a unique approach to military history. Impeccably researched and seamlessly executed. Bitch Magazine
Acknowledgments | ||
Explanatory notes | ||
Chronology of selected events in modern Korean history | ||
Introduction | 1 | |
1 | Camptown, U.S.A. | 9 |
2 | American fever | 42 |
3 | Immigrant encounters : from resistance to survival | 84 |
4 | Cooking American, eating Korean | 126 |
5 | Prodigal daughters, filial daughters | 154 |
6 | Sisters do it for themselves : building community | 188 |
Biographies of women interviewed | 223 | |
App. 1: A note on research | 231 | |
App. 2 | Overview of scholarly treatment of Korean military brides | 233 |
Notes | 237 | |
Bibliography | 265 | |
Index | 279 | |
About the author | 283 |