ABSTRACT
Images and memories of Chōsen women wearing the chŏgori (Korean garment) are often painful for members of the second generation, who are reminded of their mothers' marginalization and the shame the younger women felt of them. Over time, however, these stereotypical images have become symbols of first-generation women's strength and their willpower to survive for their family. The symbolism and memories of the chŏgori have evolved within the complicated history of the Zainichi ethnic community and Japan. This chapter introduces and examines the Chōsen woman and the chŏgori and the stereotypes created and perpetuated by male members of the literati and intelligentsia during Japan's colonization of Korea and in Japanese films. Excerpts and examples from the two Zainichi women's journals, other fiction and nonfiction publications, and films demonstrate the various ways Chōsen women and the chŏgori have been represented in Japan and the Zainichi Korean ethnic community. For second-generation Zainichi women, the chŏgori that once served as a reminder of Korea's subjugation under Japanese rule, the denial of one's ethnic identity, and the risk of being exposed and discriminated against has come to symbolize the shared experience of actively reclaiming and reconstructing in their own way the meaning of the ethnic outfit and of their gender in Japan.
