Beyond the Shadow of Camptown: Korean Military Brides in America

Explores the experiences of Korean military brides in the United States

Since the beginning of the Korean War in 1950, nearly 100,000 Korean women have immigrated to the United States as the wives of American soldiers. Based on extensive oral interviews and archival research, Beyond the Shadow of Camptown tells the stories of these women, from their presumed association with U.S. military camptowns and prostitution to their struggles within the intercultural families they create in the United States.

Historian Ji-Yeon Yuh argues that military brides are a unique prism through which to view cultural and social contact between Korea and the U.S. After placing these women within the context of Korean-U.S. relations and the legacies of both Japanese and U.S. colonialism vis á vis military prostitution, Yuh goes on to explore their lives, their coping strategies with their new families, and their relationships with their Korean families and homeland. Topics range from the personal--the role of food in their lives--to the communal--the efforts of military wives to form support groups that enable them to affirm Korean identity that both American and Koreans would deny them.

Relayed with warmth and compassion, this is the first in-depth study of Korean military brides, and is a groundbreaking contribution to Asian American, women's, and new immigrant studies, while also providing a unique approach to military history.

Author: Ji-Yeon Yuh
Publisher: New York University Press
Published: 04/01/2004
Pages: 283
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9780814796993

About the Author
Yuh, Ji-Yeon: -

Ji-Yeon Yuh is Assistant Professor of History at Northwestern University. Her work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Miami Herald, and the Baltimore Sun, as well as in major newspapers in Japan and Korea.

Ji-Yeon Yuh is Associate Professor of History and Asian American Studies at Northwestern University. She is the author of Beyond the Shadow of Camptown: Korean Military Brides in America (NYU, 2002).