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Korean diasporic nationalism in the years between 1905 and 1945
played a foundational role in the emergence of the two separate
Koreas after 1945 that both exist to this day. Koreans in the
United States were a constitutive part of this historical
trajectory. The Quest for Statehood traces the development of
Korean immigrant nationalism within the context of the Korean
independence movement which sought to liberate Korea from Japanese
colonization. Regarding Japanese rule as illegitimate, Koreans in
and out of the Korean peninsula viewed themselves as stateless
peoples who wanted to establish a sovereign state of their own.
Given Japanese repression in Korea, independence activities had to
be carried out from abroad, creating conditions for the emergence
of a diasporic nationalism. Situated at the nexus of geopolitical
relations involving Korea, Japan, and the United States, Koreans in
America came to play a vital role in the state-building project of
Korean diasporic nationalism. The Quest for Statehood explores the
consequences and implications of Korean diasporic identifications
with the homeland in a U.S. setting. Due to the constraints of
diasporic state-building, U.S.-based Koreans increasingly came to
rely on the power of the United States to act as a sovereign state
to pursue the national interests of Koreans throughout the
diaspora. This study contends this strategic reliance on U.S. state
power reflected the development of an ethnic consciousness among
Korean immigrants in America. The efforts of Korean immigrants to
fight for the independence of their homeland necessitated their
participation in civic and political activities in the United
States that established them as an American ethnic group. Korean
nationalism thus paradoxically led to Korean immigrant
incorporation into American political structures whereby ethnicity
served as an organizational resource for making nationalist claims
in the U.S. political arena. Ultimately, homeland nationalism was
central to the assimilation of Korean immigrants as American
ethnics.
Freedom without Justice is a compelling story of one man’s
wrongful incarceration and the actions he took to survive ten years
in prison, while his supporters fought to win retrial and freedom.
As a memoir, it is at once a captivating chronicle of his life with
a trenchant description of how prisons end up producing the
non-normativity they purport to prevent. This unusual story is part
of an important chapter in the post-1964 history of Asian American
activism. Chol Soo Lee’s saga begins against a backdrop of great
historical change in Asian American communities following the
passage of the 1965 Immigration Act. At the age of twelve, Chol Soo
immigrated to the United States from South Korea to reunite with
his mother, who had arrived earlier as a military bride. In less
than a decade, Chol Soo finds himself labeled as a violent
criminal, convicted, and incarcerated. Quickly Chol Soo Lee became
a rallying point for an extraordinary pan–Asian American movement
in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and Freedom without Justice
provides a rare and valuable glimpse into a pivotal moment in
history when the Asian American movement united around one of its
first major political campaigns. The Lee case brought together
immigrants and American-born Asians in a common cause of justice
and freedom. This alliance of supporters, organized under a
national network of the Chol Soo Lee Defense Committee, included
student activists, elderly immigrants, religious organizations,
small business owners, white-collar professionals, social workers,
lawyers, legal assistance organizations, and left-wing communist
groups nationwide. In the end the united front that mobilized to
attain social and legal justice for Chol Soo Lee was a remarkable
coalition of people from a broad spectrum of social backgrounds
that transcended ethnicity, class, political ideology, religion,
generation, and language. This diverse grassroots social movement
initiated and organized a six-year “Free Chol Soo Lee!”
campaign that led to Lee’s historic release from San Quentin’s
death row in 1983. Incarcerated during a time when Asian American
inmates were scarce, and Korean Americans even scarcer, Lee
embodies social realities of race and class inequalities drawing
readers into his social worlds—war-torn Korea, the streets of San
Francisco, the criminal justice system, prison gang politics, and
death row.
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