2010 Level III First Place Winner

Jacklyn Moon, Grade 11, Northern Valley Regional High School

Teacher:  Brian Hanson-Harding

Letter written to Linda Sue Park, author of When My Name Was Keoko

Dear Linda Sue Park,

            As the children of then recent Korean immigrants, my sister Jessica and I spent a great deal of our childhood trying to fit in.  Accordingly, we refused any toys that had been sent by our relatives from Korea, begged only for Sesame Street lunchboxes, and watched cartoons such as “Arthur” religiously.  In our efforts to become more “American,” however, we stopped speaking Korean altogether.  For fear that we would forget the language, our parents sent us to Saturday Korean school, where Jessica quickly fell in love with Korea’s extensive history and the intricacies of its language.  On the other hand, I did not think my Korean heritage was remotely interesting, nor did I think it was something to be proud of.  As eighth grade came around, I had only a weak grasp of the history of Korea and an even weaker grasp of the language.  I simply did not care.  However, when I read your novel, When My Name Was Keoko, that year, the way I viewed my heritage and identity changed entirely, for the better.

            While reading your novel, I developed a soft spot for the narrator, Sun-hee Kim, and found myself fascinated by the trials she and her family suffered.  I admired the courage they showed in their resistance to the Japanese, and their suffering sparked my interest to learn more about this period in history.  I knew that the Japanese had occupied Korea for almost half a century, but I had not known it was so tumultuous and degrading for the native people.  I researched online and read more books about the time period, but the questions that really stung me were how did my own grandparents suffer during the Japanese rule in Korea? Had they been forced to change their names like Sun-hee?

            I got my answers the following summer, when I visited my grandmother in Korea.  My grandma told me that when she was six years old, my great-grandfather was so distraught after the death of my great grandmother that he moved the remaining family, my grandmother and her brother Hyun-Oh, to Japan around 1920.  Once in Japan, however, my great-grandfather heard rumors that Japanese soldiers were coming to take children away from their families and force them to work.  Alarmed, he took my grandmother and my granduncle Hyun-Oh back to Korea by boat.  My grandmother remembers hearing deafening explosions during the journey and huddling under my grandfather’s coat, tired, hungry, and frightened.  Upon her arrival in Korea, she witnessed Japanese soldiers beating a Korean man in the middle of a dirt road.  As my grandmother explained to me the horror and fear she felt at that moment, I was able to imagine how Sun-hee and her brother felt when they saw young girls being coerced by Japanese soldiers to work in factories.  Also like Sun-hee, my grandmother Dal-i was forced to change her name to one that was Japanese.  She still remembers to this day the name, “Masuyo,” that made her feel stripped of her identity.

            My grandfather and his family struggled during this time period as well.  My grandfather was the only child of a widow, my great-grandmother.  When Japanese soldiers began to round up Korean males to join the Japanese military, my great-grandmother was determined that these men would not take her only child away.  She hid my grandfather in a hidden cave high up in the mountains, bringing him food as often as she could without arousing suspicion.  My great-grandmother’s act of rebellion towards the Japanese, as well as her bravery, made me much more sensitive to the trials the Kim family suffered from their own acts of resistance.

            As I mentioned before, I had not known my own grandmother and grandfather suffered like Sun-hee and her family. Because of your novel, I learned about Korea’s history and my grandparents’ fascinating past.  More importantly, I learned to love my Korean heritage, something I had been almost ashamed of in the past and so eager to erase.  Talking with my grandmother, who knows what it feels like to have one’s individuality robbed and replaced, made me realize the importance of my own heritage and identity.  I am now grateful for my Korean identity, because I know thousands in Korea in the early twentieth century did not have my good fortune.

            Thank you, Linda Sue Park, for inspiring me with your story.

            Sincerely,