Korean Gendered Diaspora: Rethinking Forced and Voluntary Women’s Migration

The migration of Korean women in the 20th century demonstrates the saliency of empires, nations, and neighbors, which most often served as their destinations. During the first half of the century, migration to Japan and China were dominant, while in the second half, migration to the United States and Japan were dominant. Some, like farmers, merchants, students, and nurses, are easily recognizable as migrants, while others, like comfort women, military brides, and adoptees, are less familiar as migrants. My research on Korean diaspora explores the blurry boundaries between forced and voluntary migration of women in a landscape of imperial powers, racial and gender ideologies, war, and militarization. It argues for overlapping circuits of migration that expand from the regional to the trans-Pacific, and delineates the ways in which the women’s own actions and choices interact with imperial and neo-imperial powers to shape those circuits. Thus I propose to discuss the experiences of Korean woman migrants to outline how the demands of capitalism and empire have worked with race and gender to shape their migration.