Finding Junie Kim

Finding Junie Kim includes the stories of Doha and Jinjoo, providing a historical fiction account of the Korean War, which began in 1950 after years of hostility and conflict when North Korea invaded South Korea. The war is most often referred to as the 625 War by South Koreans, signifying when the war began and establishing the importance of the dates that appear as the sub-titles of Book 2 and Book 4 of the novel. The war ended with an armistice on July 27, 1953. Rather than establishing an official peace treaty, the Korean Armistice Agreement created a Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) to separate North and South Korea, maintaining hostilities between Communist North and Democratic South Korea in a frozen conflict that Grandpa describes to Junie when he discusses his and Grandma’s decision to move to the US.

The Korean War follows the 35-year-long occupation of Japan, which concluded at the end of WWII when the United States and the Soviet Union divided Korea into two occupied zones. The Soviet Union controlled the northern zone, while America controlled the southern zone. The zones became sovereign states in 1948 due to Cold War tensions. North Korea, formally The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, was controlled by Kim II Sung, while South Korea, formally The Republic of Korea, was controlled by Syngman Rhee. Dr. Han references both leaders in Doha’s tale, describing the corruption and brutality of both regimes. The hostilities continued to escalate with regular skirmishes and insurrections along the border between states. Doha and his friend discuss the indigenous guerilla attacks by Communist sympathizers at the beginning of Book 2. The early chapters of Book 2 also illustrate the surprise that many Koreans felt when hostilities finally erupted into war.

The Korean War is recognized as one of the most destructive conflicts in the modern era, resulting in an estimated 3 million deaths. The war had a larger civilian death toll than WWII or the Vietnam War and destroyed most of Korea’s major cities. Both sides committed atrocities, including over 10,000 executions of suspected communists by the South Korean government, which Junie’s grandfather references when describing the most likely fate of his friend Sunjin. In addition, the North Korean government was guilty of mass starvation and torture of prisoners of war, such as the ROKA prisoners that are found in Dr. Han’s clinic and buried alive. Despite the scale of the conflict, the war is referred to as The Forgotten War or The Unknown War in America because of the lack of public attention the war received, a key reference to Junie’s oral history project for school. When describing the discrimination that he and his wife suffered after emigrating to the US, Junie’s grandfather notes they were often confused for Chinese or Japanese Americans. He explains that most Americans were not even aware of Koreans in the US but hated all Asians equally.