Framed by War: Korean Children and Women at the Crossroads of US Empire

Front Cover
NYU Press, Nov 19, 2019 - Social Science - 336 pages

An intimate portrait of the postwar lives of Korean children and women

Korean children and women are the forgotten population of a forgotten war. Yet during and after the Korean War, they were central to the projection of US military, cultural, and political dominance. Framed by War examines how the Korean orphan, GI baby, adoptee, birth mother, prostitute, and bride emerged at the heart of empire. Strained embodiments of war, they brought Americans into Korea and Koreans into America in ways that defined, and at times defied, US empire in the Pacific.

What unfolded in Korea set the stage for US postwar power in the second half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. American destruction and humanitarianism, violence and care played out upon the bodies of Korean children and women. Framed by War traces the arc of intimate relations that served as these foundations. To suture a fragmented past, Susie Woo looks to US and South Korean government documents and military correspondence; US aid organization records; Korean orphanage registers; US and South Korean newspapers and magazines; and photographs, interviews, films, and performances. Integrating history with visual and cultural analysis, Woo chronicles how Americans went from knowing very little about Koreans to making them family, and how Korean children and women who did not choose war found ways to navigate its aftermath in South Korea, the United States, and spaces in between.

 

Contents

Imagined Family Frames
31
US Aid Campaigns and the Korean Childrens Choir
57
International Cold War Families
83
Producing Model Korean Adoptees
112
Erasing Empire
143
Managing Korean War Brides
174
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Framed by War: Korean Children and Women at the Crossroads of US Empire
Susie Woo
Limited preview - 2019
Framed by War: Korean Children and Women at the Crossroads of US Empire
Susie Woo
Limited preview - 2019
Framed by War: Korean Children and Women at the Crossroads of US Empire
Susie Woo
Limited preview - 2019

Common terms and phrases

administrators adoptions African American agencies American appeared Army arrival Asian asked babies became become brides Center changed chil child Choir Christian Cold constructions continued couples cultural December Department described director domestic efforts empire existing explained father February figure Folder forced foreign frames girls Holt Ilbo images immigration included International Japanese Korean adoptees Korean children Korean women letters lives look March marriage military missionaries mixed mixed-race children model minority mothers narratives needs October Office opened Oriental Orphan orphanage overseas Pacific parents photographs pictured political postwar practices problem prostitution race racial records remained Report rescue Rhee scripts Seoul Service servicemen Sisters social Social Welfare social workers soldiers South Korea story subjects SWHA thousand tion transnational United Vision wanted welfare woman World York young

About the author (2019)

Susie Woo is Associate Professor of American Studies at California State University, Fullerton.

Bibliographic information

TitleFramed by War: Korean Children and Women at the Crossroads of US Empire
Volume 30 of Nation of Nations
AuthorSusie Woo
Editionillustrated
PublisherNYU Press, 2019
ISBN1479889911, 9781479889914
Length336 pages
Subjects ›  › 

History / Asia / Korea
Social Science / Ethnic Studies / Asian American Studies
  
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