February KPNGN Newsletter

Happy Lunar New Year! Our next KPNGN meeting will happen Thursday, February 13, at 5pm PT/8pm ET. Coordinators of the KPNGN Steering Committee will present their work and discuss ways for you to deepen your knowledge about Korea peace issues and participate in strategy meetings and collective actions to advance our goals. We will also discuss our plans for 2025. RSVP at bit.ly/febkpngn


All committees (Advocacy, Education, Coalition Building, and Membership) are accepting new members! Please email Echo at echo@womencrossdmz.org to join a committee. And if you haven’t already, please sign up for our Korea Peace Now! Grassroots Network here.

KPNGN Orientation Part II: Immediately after the national meeting, at 6pm PT/9pm ET, we’ll continue with Part II of our New Member Orientation. In Part II, our Education Committee will present a brief history of the Korean War, followed by a small group discussion. RSVP at bit.ly/febkpngn.

RSVP for Intergenerational Healing and Learning


KPN X GYOPO | The Stories We Bring to Bear: Flipping the Scripts on Adoption | Thursday, February 6 from 5-6:30pm PT/8-9:30pm ET | RSVP

What exists beyond, around, and throughout the lives of adopted people and their various families and communities? How can we uplift a multitude of narratives in addition to the oft-told “reunion” stories? Individuals adopted from Korea and their first families bring especially critical stories to bear on the topic of ending the Korean War and “tongil” (통일, “reunification of the Korean peninsula”). Join us to hear from award-winning filmmaker Deann Borshay Liem and aspiring director and community organizer Meejin Seol, in a conversation moderated by journalist Anna Kook. Speakers will talk about their work, families, the geopolitics of adoption, and why we cannot hope to understand the history of the Korean War, militarism, or division without understanding the history of transnational adoption. We will also discuss legacies of the ongoing Korean War and the present-day political landscape in South Korea, including impeachment and ongoing resistance by Korean civil society. ASL interpretation will be provided.

Deann Borshay Liem is an Emmy Award-winning documentarian known for exploring war, memory, family and identity. Her work on the Korean War, including Memory of Forgotten War, Crossings, and the oral history project Legacies of the Korean War, explores divided families and women’s role in peacemaking.

Meejin Seol is a queer Korean adoptee, aspiring documentary filmmaker, and dog mom. She currently lives in Seoul and plays with Solidarity Poongmul Pae Jangpoong (소수자연대풍물패 장풍). She moved to Korea with the goals of learning language, deepening her knowledge and practice of poongmul nori, spending time with family, and making a documentary film that pushes beyond traditional ideas about reunion, family and home.

Anna Kook is a multilingual, award-winning reporter who seeks to bring Asian faces and voices to mainstream media. She is currently a correspondent & producer at AJ+. Recently, a story from a series Anna produced and edited, “It’s Bisan from Gaza and I’m Still Alive,” won a Peabody and national Emmy award.

For your reading


NEW! How MAGA Made Its Way to South Korea | Cathi Choi writes for In These Times about the influence of Trump’s MAGA in South Korea. “It would be easy to identify these apparent similarities and not interrogate further. But the connections between U.S. and South Korean far-right forces are both old and new, rooted in decades of U.S. and South Korean militarism, the ongoing Korean War, and the oligarchs who profit,” Cathi writes. “The ongoing events in South Korea should not just be a distant news item for U.S. readers with abstract lessons for “democracy.” We must understand that the United States has been involved with the Korean Peninsula for decades, and U.S. militarism has profoundly shaped South Korea’s political landscape.”


How Right-Wing Forces are Attempting to Undermine Democracy and Peace Activists | This recent political education thread explains the rising transnational, far-right campaign to smear pro-democracy and pro-peace activists, and how intergenerational Koreans (including KPNGN members) are pushing back.


 

Korea Peace Priorities Coalition Letter to the Trump Administration |The Korea Peace Now! Grassroots Network joined over 40 national organizations in signing a letter urging the Trump administration to pursue a diplomatic, peace-first approach with North Korea focused on improving relations, ending the Korean War, and reducing nuclear risk. Several Korean news outlets covered the letter, including OhmyNews and Daum.


📚 READ: From the Education Committee:

  1. How Memories of Struggle Spurred the Defense of South Korea’s Democracy | Journalist Yejin Gim draws connections between the struggles and lessons learned from the Gwangju Uprising in 1980 and the timely and powerful response of the Korean people to Yoon Suk Yeol’s imposition of martial law in S. Korea.
  2. TO DRIVE FORWARD AT HIGH SPEED LOOK BACKWARDS | Peter Hayes and Leon Sigal provide thoughtful analysis of the political fallout from Yoon Suk Yeol’s attempted coup and consider the prospects for diplomatic engagement with the DPRK by the new Trump administration.
  3. Behind the explosion of Korea’s far right, catalyzed by Yoon | Ji-hye Lee writes for Hankyoreh about the disturbing rise of the far right in South Korea, which strongly embraces Yoon, anti-communism, and anti-Chinese sentiments. Although Yoon failed in his attempt to establish martial rule, he has been successful in rallying his far-right supporters, which has contributed to the current state of political turmoil in the country.

Follow Korea Peace Now! on Bluesky! Say hello and check out our new account ✌️

🛍 Support the Korea Peace Movement: Show your support for Korea peace with one of our new tote bags, hats, baby onesies, and clothing, available here. All money raised will support Korea Peace Now!, our U.S.-based movement for peace in Korea led by Women Cross DMZ. Art by Peter Holland and lazy blender.

Looking forward to seeing you at these upcoming gatherings!

Sincerely,

Cathi Choi and Echo

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