Unit 2, Activity A: Korean American literature as history
Goal: to explore issues of Korean and Korean American history through literature.
Memoirs and historical novels are one way to learn about the experiences of all kinds of people. Excerpts from the following titles provide a quick glimpse into the lives of the earliest Korean Americans.
What are some of the historical elements that can be gleaned from these excerpts? Encourage students to further explore the clues found here to better understand the environment, the history, and in-depth experiences of arriving into a new country as an immigrant.
Discuss the immigrant stories of the students’ families and highlight the overall similarities of those stories that will emerge, while celebrating the differences in details of each of the unique family tales.
[These titles below are appropriate for grades 6-8 and older.]
East Goes West: The Making of an Oriental Yankee by Younghill Kang
Picture Bride by Cathy Song (poetry collection)
Quiet Odyssey: A Pioneer Korean Woman in America by Mary Paik Lee, edited with an introduction by Sucheng Chen
Activities
