2009

Bongsoo Park

  • Doctoral Candidate
  • University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Picture of Bongsoo Park

Project

Intimate Encounters, Racial Frontiers: The Stateless GI Babies in South Korea and the United States, 1953-1965

Program

Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowships

Department

American Studies

Abstract

This dissertation explores the policy implications of statelessness by examining “G.I. babies,” children born of non-marital sexual relations between US soldiers and Korean women between 1953 and 1965 in South Korea. Using both English- and Korean-language documents about adoption and immigration of the G.I. babies, it shows that these children triggered both the United States and Korea to redefine access to citizenship and meanings of race. In so doing, this dissertation argues that citizenship policies of both nations formalized a racially exclusionary vision of national belonging.