The Murders of Asian Women in Georgia, USA
It has been hard to figure out what to say about the recent murders of six Asian women, including four Korean women, in Georgia, USA. Their names were Daoyou Feng (age forty-four), Hyun Jung Grant (fifty-one), Suncha Kim (sixty-nine), Soon Chung Park (seventy-four), Xiaojie Tan (forty-nine), and Yong Ae Yue (sixty-three). These women were all close to my own age (forty-nine) or my mother’s age (seventy-six).
I have been feeling foggy and disconnected. It was helpful to gather with Korean female Co-Counselors on Thursday night to discharge. We all knew something about what it means to be Korean and female. We didn’t have to pretend. Part of what it means is that we do what we have to do. I could see that growing up with my mother and grandmother. They would each do whatever they had to do to make sure we survived. I could see their strength, determination, and intelligence as they did that. I also learned that sacrifice was required from them as Korean women, and therefore from me. I can see all those things in the stories that are coming out about the women who were killed. They each worked jobs and did whatever they had to do to first take care of their families and survive.
I feel angry about the role of U.S. imperialism. There is a direct line from the sex industry around U.S. military bases in South Korea to Korean women working in massage parlors in the United States. Some women are directly trafficked from one location to the other. Others are not directly coerced through trafficking, but once they come to the United States, that is where they are able to find work. The spas that were targeted last week may or may not have involved prostitution, but they were targeted because of that association.
In one news interview last week with the head of an Asian Pacific American women’s organization, the interviewer asked if pop culture contributed to the targeting of Asian women. I thought that was a ridiculous question. The problem is the U.S. government going into countries like South Korea, historically and currently. The U.S. government uses the military and other means to undermine grassroots movements for self-determination and prop up owning-class interests, and women are used and sacrificed to make all of this possible. From the beginning of Western contact with and colonization of different parts of Asia, Asian women have been seen as objects to be used, often sexually.
This affects me personally every day. I don’t even realize how much space it takes up in my brain deciding how to dress and carry myself in public so that I won’t attract sexualized attention from men. This is true for most women, but the attention I am trying to avoid is a specific kind that involves hyper-sexualized fantasies about East Asian women.
Safety is another issue. I do not have any expectation of safety. I was born during a military dictatorship in South Korea that violently suppressed political dissent. My grandmother, who was born during the Japanese occupation of Korea in the first half of the twentieth century, was forced to marry because it was thought that would keep her safe from recruitment or kidnapping by the Japanese government to become a military sexual slave (“comfort woman”). My grandfather was taken in the middle of the night from his home in Seoul by North Korean soldiers during the Korean War. My uncle, who lived with us when I was young, had served with the U.S. army in the Vietnam War.
Given all these circumstances, there was no way my parents could provide a sense of safety as I was growing up. I think that has made me unable to think well about my safety in the present. And I don’t think I’m alone in that. Many other Asian countries have experienced war, colonization, and imperialism in the very recent past—often directly or indirectly at the hands of the United States. We carry undischarged grief, terror, numbness, despair, fear of violence, and feelings of victimization from those experiences.
One thing I would ask from allies is to help us Asian-heritage women remember that we matter. Our lives matter, for our own sakes—not for what we do to serve others, even in the fight for liberation. We have been trained to be objects of use. We do it to ourselves, and others do it to us. It is hard to notice and interrupt. Try to notice where you count on [rely on] us, what you count on us for, and where you might unawarely exploit our caring, our attention, and our time. We need you to be able to see us and think about us as full human beings, worthy of value and respect.
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion list for leaders of women
(Present Time 204, July 2021)