Memory, Identity, and Belonging Among the Displaced

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: Learning From and Advocating for Newcomers and Students From Refugee Backgrounds

Abstract

In this paper, I discuss how children of North Korean (NK) war refugees who were dislocated during the Korean war reflect on their family’s narratives and construct memories vis-à-vis their NK heritage. Drawing from the concept of postmemory (Hirsch, 1992) that has long chased those that came after Jewish Holocaust survivors, findings indicate that this population assembled transnational awareness while presenting individual or collective alignment with other displaced populations across the globe (i.e., Jewish people, African Americans, and Korean Japanese). Additionally, participants presented alternative perspectives that were not revealed in the standardized curriculum, which might disrupt the power inherent in official knowledge and bring forth multiplicity in understanding of the difficult past.

Author

• Ahrum Jeon, Boston College