This book explains, critiques, and expands on the narratives regarding the memorials erected in the US to honor female victims of the comfort women system established by the Japanese military from 1937 to 1945.
Bilateral relations reached an impasse after the impeachment of Park Geun-hye in 2017, unsettling further progress with Japan.
The US is culpable in this issue because of its use of the comfort women system and because of U.S. forces’ continued use of a prostitution network across Korea and Japan.
For decades, the comfort women remained in the shadows because of the deep shame and guilt that they felt as a result of their experiences at the hands of Imperial Japan during the Second World War.
A Korean woman or girl who responded to an ad for work rarely had any idea of what awaited her when she arrived at a military camp in the Pacific War theater.
At least a dozen memorials have been established in the United States with a few more remaining in mothballs, waiting for a home in a park or in some other venue.
A true reconciliation over the ‘comfort women’ issue requires a future vision, or a grand scheme, within which the current agreement is contextualized.
Reconciliation without forgiveness exists between Japan and Korea. Genuine reconciliation should be pursued to complement to what political reconciliation has missed.
Grievously wounded subjects are not easily healed and it would be naïve to assume that victims of state aggression will be able to put the past behind them.
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