ABSTRACT
Zainichi women see themselves as simultaneously belonging to more than one nation-state and exhibit intricacies of multiple selves. The multitude of differing and diverging identities they embody and the transition from one generation to the next create a kind of in-between existence, triggering a sense of vagueness and uncertainty yet also affording the women a sense of freedom and autonomy. Various possible interpretations of transnational, multinational, and even nationless “being,” “belonging,” and “not belonging” emerge from Zainichi women's narratives. This chapter elucidates the sense of nostalgia that is woven throughout Zainichi women's stories, conveying a feeling of contemplative reflection and offering a reinterpretation of the past. For the younger generation, nostalgia for home and homeland manifests as an ambiguous longing that occupies no definite space and has no set boundaries, existing in the imagination as a revisiting of a particular emotion or sentiment. It is a way of returning to often-difficult childhood memories with one's present-day perspectives of maturity, development, appeasement, understanding, and forgiveness. Second-generation women's nostalgic longing is not so much a desire to return to a certain time but rather a wish to reflect on that time in such a way as to either appease painful memories or emphasize a present moment in which they understand and feel empathy for themselves and the previous generation. By understanding the previous generation, who seem simultaneously near yet distant, familiar yet foreign, subsequent generations can get to know a part of themselves and their roots in hopes of also grasping the complexities of their own situations, strengthening them to turn the constraint of an in-between existence into the freedom of multiple selves.
