ABSTRACT
Comparatively little work by Korean American women was published before the last few years of the 20th century. The 1907 Gentlemen’s Agreement enabled the immigration of several thousand Japanese and Korean women as supposed non-laboring brides of sugar plantation workers at the beginning of the 20th century. Masculinist nationalism subordinates and sidelines women at best and renders them victims of gendered violence at worst. Wars are fought over the bodies of women. The expatriates go on exotic vacations at Asian resorts that resemble “small empires” where they can enjoy the role of the ruler, with locals running to obey every whim like feudal servants. The novel takes place in the 1990s, when Korean American lives were profoundly affected by Black–Korean tensions in East and West Coast cities and the rapid economic and social changes and spectacular labor struggles in South Korea after the establishment of the constitutional government.
