Reference
Of all the Pacific War literature for adolescents I’ve read, this book may be the most accessible for the students I teach – English Language Learners mainly from Central American, African, and Asian countries with their own stories of fear, violence, family separation, resistance, and survival.
During the Japanese occupation of Korea from 1910 through the end of WWII, the identity of the Korean individual was crushed. Recall how westward expansion in the United States obliterated the identity of Native Americans. Recall how Native American families surrendered children to the flagship Carlisle Indian Boarding School which, in turn, forced children to give up their own cultures, languages, religions, and even their names, doing psychic damage to generations.
The Japanese aspired to obliterate the Korean culture by imposing a new infrastructure on every aspect of Korean life – dress (pants instead of Hanbok), food (millet and brown rice instead of white rice which was confiscated for export to Japan), education (Japanese became the official language with Japanese history and culture replacing Korean language and history), religion (Koreans were forced to bow to the East -home of the Japanese emperor- and support neighborhood Shinto shrines), and even the surrender of their Korean names and adoption of Japanese names (which is, by the way, still a legal requirement for application for Japanese citizenship today.)
Perhaps best classified as historical fiction, this narrative is told through the alternating voices of a young Korean girl, Sun-hee, and her older brother, Tae-yul. The author incorporates true stories she heard from her parents who lived in Korea at the time and touches on familiar events of the Japanese occupation – the imperial gift of rubber balls, the 1936 Olympic gold medalist Sohn Kee Chung being hailed as “Kitei Son” from Japan, the young Korean men pressed into service as kamikaze pilots for Japan, and the disappearance of young girls.
The book spans the years 1940 to 1945. Uncle is a resistance worker who disappears into hiding in northern Korea, never to return. Father is a demoted elementary school official and scholar who secretly pens articles for a resistance newspaper. Sun-hee is an inquisitive, intelligent child whose daily life teaches the reader volumes about male/female roles in Korean culture as well as daily life at home and in the community during the occupation.
The sentences, paragraphs, and chapters in this book are short and the vocabulary is accessible for English Language Learners. The book could be a resource for lessons on culture, conflict, the Pacific War and Asia, imperialism, and colonization. It is useful for the study of memoir, perspective, and interpretation.
What appealed to me most, however, is the theme of namelessness. Conveyed by the title and Park’s heart rendering story are the helplessness, frustration, confusion, anger, and loss experienced by the characters.
Many Central American students are familiar with a recent movie called “Sin Nombre” or “Nameless.” It is also a heart rendering story of adolescents trying to survive amid violence and societal breakdown that fragments families and wipes out hope. The main character is stuck in a world he didn’t create and for which he is not responsible. The movie title “Nameless” comes from what the director saw scrawled on scraps of cardboard littering the border between Mexico and the United States – makeshift markers for those who died trying to make it across.
When My Name Was Keoko will resonate on many levels with our students from troubled countries who will hopefully find both catharsis and the inspiration and voice to tell their own stories. The book will also be a powerful connector to the Pacific War story, and to all stories of lost children in the world.
