ABSTRACT
A common topic in second-generation women's writings is the mother figure—ŏmŏni—which this chapter explores. The second generation feels a vast and intense range of emotions toward their mothers, encompassing anger, regret, remorse, guilt, frustration, rebellion, liberation, empathy, and sympathy. With maturity—and, for many, motherhood—these women have recognized and expressed an interconnectedness and a shared fate with their mothers, not just as Zainichi but also as minorities and women. Zainichi women narrate their sometimes contentious yet nostalgically longing memories of this influential person, and in doing so, they reflect on and understand their own womanhood. Zainichi women's creative and autobiographical writings reveal conflicting views of ŏmŏni and express a version of the Chōsen no onna (Korean woman) that is very different from the monolithic mythical figure often presented by male writers. Second-generation Zainichi women sometimes rejected or resented their mother's ignorance, aggression, uncultivated ways, and embodiment of the stigmatized Chōsen, a foreign and shameful entity. Some considered their mothers the cause of their emotional turmoil, having witnessed the older women's repression and degradation in the ethnic community and Japan. Breaking from tradition and presenting a negative image of “mother” was a small way for second-generation women to liberate themselves from the restrictions they felt the ethnic community forced on them. However, the women's desire to negate their roots, distinguish themselves from their mothers, and create a new and separate identity independent from the first generation is met with the realization that the lives of the two generations of women are inextricably intertwined—one's story does not exist without the other's.
