Publications by Sandra So Hee Chi Kim
Journal of the Southwest, 2023
This article examines how the representation of the Korean War in Rolando Hinojosa's Klail City D... more This article examines how the representation of the Korean War in Rolando Hinojosa's Klail City Death Trip series (KCDTS) critiques official histories of U.S. empire through an engagement with ethical memory. My interest in Hinojosa’s Korean War fiction concerns how these texts rely on counterhegemonic remembering to both underscore the predicament of Chicanos as a subaltern group in the U.S. military environment and highlight the ways in which Chicano, Korean, and Japanese experiences of U.S. empire overlap. In the first section, I analyze the ways in which Hinojosa features the interaction of historical memories across geographies and generations. I suggest that Hinojosa’s works offer a historical re-presentation of the Korean War, framed not by the usual Cold War narrative of U.S. anti-communist imperatives, but rather by connected histories of powerlessness, loss, and displacement caused by the forever wars4 of U.S. empire. I argue that Hinojosa’s Korean War texts are works of ethical memory that together expose the lived effects of U.S. imperialism across generations and continents. The second section of the article is a sustained analysis of how Hinojosa’s distinctive use of form and genre uncovers the importance of heeding the testimonies of those whose voices are silenced and whose histories are hidden. Finally, in my conclusion, I offer a reflection on what ethical memory and re-presenting history can do for shaping more just futures.
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Occasion: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities , 2018
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Korean Studies, 2017
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positions: asia critique, 2016
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Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 2013
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Book Reviews by Sandra So Hee Chi Kim
American Literary History, 2023
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Lateral: Journal of the Cultural Studies Association, 2022
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Discourse: Journal for Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture, 2012
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Publications by Sandra So Hee Chi Kim
Book Reviews by Sandra So Hee Chi Kim