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.