The Triumph and Tragedy of U.S. Involvement in Korea Grace Berlier

The Triumph and Tragedy of U.S. Involvement in Korea Grace Berlier Senior Division Historical Paper Paper Length: 2,455 words 1 “Had I not been adopted by my American parents, I would have ended up on the streets in Korea.” - Rosina Rohrs, G.I. baby1 The Korean War is often referred to as “The Forgotten War” because of the limited public awareness of the conflict and its timing of occurrence in between more prominent 2 conflicts of World War II and the Vietnam War. Yet, for many Koreans, the lasting impact of United States involvement in the Korean War is difficult to forget. The U.S. involvement in Korea may, at first glance, appear to reflect triumphs. Indeed, U.S. involvement in Korea resulted in the formation of a strong foundation for international adoption practices and policies and created an improved Korean public education system. A closer look at these seemingly positive outcomes, however, reveals that much of these celebrated triumphs are actually the result of United States’ efforts to fix the problems created by the presence of U.S. servicemen in Korea in the first place. In fact, U.S. involvement in the Korean War left a legacy of tragedy in the form of large populations of “G.I. babies”, mixed race infants and children of U.S. servicemen and native Korean women, who were left behind in Korea during and following the 3 war. These G.I. babies faced a challenging life characterized by cultural isolation and discrimination if they remained in Korea or a life marked by the emotional and social consequences associated with being adopted internationally and moving half of a world away to live with U.S. families in a vastly different culture. As such, U.S. involvement in the Korean War is as much a tragedy as it is a triumph, particularly for the abandoned infants and children of U.S. military servicemen. At its root, the Korean War reflected the growing tension between communists and 2 anti-communists. On June 25, 1950, North Korean troops ventured across the 38th parallel border into South Korea. Backed by Soviet and Chinese communists, North Korean troops sought to to capture non-communist South Korea within three weeks. To quiet worries of Soviet 4 confrontation, President Truman refrained from calling the conflict a war, but there was no denying that the Korean War was a Cold War conflict between communists and 5 anti-communists. When North Korean troops marched into South Korea, they were in fact 6 violating the charter of the United Nations. After World War II, the world experienced a brief 7 moment of peace in that the Soviet Union and the United States had not yet begun to push their 8 proxy war agendas. As part of the United Nations, the United States and Soviet Union had 9 shared the common goal of preventing one power from dominating over others. However, as President Eisenhower explained, “This common purpose lasted only an instant—and perished. 10 The nations of the world divided to follow two distinct roads”. The world divided into communist and anti-communist positions signifying the beginning of American fears of communist domination. From the U.S. perspective, an attack on Korea, meant an attack on all of 11 Asia which could result in a fully communist Asia. Attempting to prevent World War III, the 12 United States, acting under the “auspices of the United Nations”, fought a limited war in 13 Korea consistent with the desire to halt the spread of communism. With the decision of the United States to involve itself in the Korean War, American forces were sent overseas to Korea. As might be expected, American servicemen began engaging in relationships with native Korean women. Unfortunately, in Korean society, a common story prevailed: A Korean woman bore the child of an American soldier and dishonor descended upon her family, often resulting in the woman committing suicide to rid herself of the shame and pain 3 14 of isolation from mainstream society. If the woman chose not to not to commit suicide, she and her child faced social discrimination in Korea for the entirety of their lives. In bearing a single child of an American serviceman, a Korean woman risked severing her family ties, losing her 15 financial safety net, and sacrificing her societal standing. A Korean woman could be kicked out 16 of her house and left to fend for herself. In essence, a Korean woman jeopardized her own social and emotional welfare when she became involved with and had a child with an American serviceman. Several factors accounted for the shame thrust upon Korean mothers and children conceived with American servicemen, the first reflecting the pre-existing culture in Korea at the 17 time. Koreans had a long-standing ideal of racial purity. Specifically, Koreans wanted Korea to be comprised of only full Koreans, and G.I. babies threatened this idea. Moreover, in Korean culture, names and birthdates are perceived to bring good or bad luck. In many cases, however, G.I. babies were not given actual names and their birthdates were unrecorded, thus bringing 18 shame to the child. An additional factor bringing shame to Korean women and G.I babies was that many mixed-race, mixed-ethnicity children resulted from relations between U.S. servicemen 19 20 and Korean prostitutes. Although prostitution was outlawed in Korea in 1948, Koreans and Americans stood idle as “one million Korean women provided sex for them [six million 21 American servicemen] in the camptowns. As a result, many Koreans predominantly perceived 22 G.I. babies as “the children of prostitutes”. Moreover, G.I babies were not regarded as Korean citizens. These children could not be entered into a hojuk (similar to a U.S. birth certificate), so they could never obtain Korean citizenship. Additionally tragic, many U.S. servicemen fathers failed to recognize their own offspring, thus leaving these children with neither Korean nor 4 American citizenship. Thus, due to a lack of legal status, these G.I. babies continued to face arduous experiences long into adulthood when trying to attend school, find employment, and get married.23 Certainly not all children were the product of relations between U.S. servicemen and Korean prostitutes. Yet, even when a Korean woman and a U.S. serviceman fell in love, she could not immigrate easily to the U.S. due to U.S. laws. The Immigration Act of 1924 (a result of the Quota Act of 1921) limited the number of immigrants who could enter into the United States to 150,000 immigrants per year, with each nationality having a quota that could not be exceeded. This act was often referred to as the “Oriental Exclusion Law”, because it limited quotas of 24 immigrants from Asian countries versus European countries. Prior to 1921, immigrants were turned away from the United States on a qualitative rather than quantitative basis with the intention to limit the number of undesirable characteristics versus the number of people 25 immigrating. On June 27, 1952, the United States passed the McCarran-Walter Act which 26 effectively “eliminated all restrictions on nationalization” allowing Asians to immigrate to the U.S. and become U.S. citizens. The national-origins quota system, however, continued to prevail until the introduction of the Immigration Act of 1965, ensuring that immediate relatives of 27 American citizens were not subjugated to the quotas. This class of “immediate relatives” was 28 comprised of the children, spouses, and parents of United States citizens. Hence, with these changes in law, native Korean women could finally immigrate to the United States, regardless of quotas, with their U.S. serviceman husbands and their children. Even with changes to immigration, Korean women and U.S. servicemen faced significant difficulty with getting married in the first place. The U.S. military opposed interracial marriages, 5 and commanding officers, as a general practice, did not give servicemen permission to marry the native Korean women. Some commanding officers went as far as to transfer servicemen to prevent interracial marriage. As a consequence, due to a lack of an official marriage, these servicemen could not bring their Korean partners and children home to the U.S.. On occasion, these couples had a Korean wedding, yet sadly, these services were not recognized by U.S. law, preventing Korean women from immigrating to America with their U.S. servicemen husbands. In some tragic cases, servicemen divorced their Korean wives, unbeknownst to these women, prior to returning to the United States.29 Simply put, Korean women who had children with U.S. servicemen faced incredible obstacles. Typically, only two options for these Korean mothers existed: either put their children up for adoption or keep their children and bear watching them struggle on the receiving end of prejudice and discrimination from native Koreans. It was not unusual for Korean adults to throw 30 stones, spit, and urinate on these children as they passed in the streets. Native Koreans could tell by the children’s physical appearance that they were different. Even South Korean President Rhee stated at the time that mixed-race children “will never have any real place in Korean 31 society”, reflecting the discrimination that these children faced on a daily basis. Despite the fact that free, universal education was made available for Korean children up to the sixth grade,³² mixed-race children faced prejudice in the school environment as well. One former G.I. baby described her experience as a mixed-race child in Korea: In third grade, all of the students had to bow to the teacher when we entered the classroom, and every time I entered the room, I got hit on the head.

Load more