Center for Korean Studies faculty member Gary Pak, a professor of English at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, will lead a colloquium titled "Plantation Children: Broadcasting Histories of Second-Generation Koreans in Hawai‘i" Tuesday, April 23, 2019, at the Center.

The colloquim begins at 1:30 p.m. and runs until 3:00 p.m.

This program is based on research Pak conducted in 2005-2006, interviewing nineteen second-generation Koreans who were born and reared in the Islands by parents who had immigrated from Korea between 1903 and 1905. The ages of the interviewees ranged from the early seventies to the early nineties. The Center for Korean Studies published a three-DVD collection of these interviews with the title Plantation Children: 2nd-generation Koreans in Hawai'i in 2017.

The research aimed to explore whether there is a Korean identity in a multicultural environment such as in Hawai‘i and, if so, how language and culture may be factors that have shaped this identity. Pak posed questions on how to deepen our understanding of the particular nature of the Korean diaspora and what new cultures, new identities, and new ideologies may have been synthesized as a result of this history of global displacement.

This presentation will discuss how the project was started initially with the development of the centennial celebration in 2003 of the first Korean immigration to Hawai‘i; what kinds of issues and problems were encountered during the course of the project; what kinds of research methods and processes were used; and what kinds of research instruments were created for further research and development.

Gary Pak is a third-generation Korean American whose grandparents arrived in Hawai`i in 1905. He is the author of, among other works, The Watcher of Waipuna and Other Stories (1992), A Ricepaper Airplane (1998), Children of a Fireland (2004), Language of the Geckos and Other Stories (2005), and Brothers Under a Same Sky (2013).

Center for Korean Studies colloquia are free and open to all. For further information, including information about access for the handicapped, telephone the Center at (808) 956-7041. This program is supported by the Core University program for Korean Studies through the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and Korean Studies Promotion Service of the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS-2015-OLU-2250005).