March 1st, 1919, is Korean Independence Movement Day, the day that announced the Korean Declaration of Independence. A hundred years ago, this day showed the most widespread public non-violent resistance led by commoners against Japanese colonial rule of Korea from 1910 to 1945. This movement led to the first establishment of Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea in Shanghai in April, 1919, and also influenced the growth of non-violent resistance movements for independence in India, China, and many other countries.
Commemorating all sacrifices made for Korean independence, I write...
In Memories of My Roots
5000 years make history
A history 36 years of colonization cannot take away
A small peninsula standing strong among big nations
A fearless patriotism lighting up its ceaseless fire
People that never exchanged their Korean names for life
People willing to die for the name of their nation
People who had such unyielding stubbornness
100 years tell a story
A story of a family
A grandmother who has lived through pains of Japanese colonization,
A mother who has lived with the stories of her mother’s pain,
A child who has lived on tests about countless stories of her ancestors’ pain
33 lead activists in one voice,
read aloud the Korean Declaration of Independence
that no power in this world could ever suppress their nationhood
Thousands of angels in white raised their flag and cried hurray
All in the public eye
Exposed with no shame
Non-violent shouting stronger than brutal Japanese armies
Piled deaths for a single death wish
6264, the number of cards found 45 years later,
of people under surveillance of the Japanese rule
out of 75000, an estimated number of unknown independence activists
A 17 year-old girl, in all bravery
who led non-violent independence movement, tortured to death
A 27 year-old poet
who refused the ban of Korean language in his 144 beautiful poems
Thousands of students
who valued nation over their nameless bodies
And countless number of commoners
who refused to let go their national identity
A symbol of history made by people
who wished nothing but their nation’s independence
A trail of nameless sacrifices we must remember
3.1, the day we must not forget
Remember those who rebuilt the country
Remember common heros who made history
Remember their shoutout
100 years later,
27, the number of comfort women still surviving
Still fighting all their lives for a simple apology
Unknown, constantly rewritten numbers of surviving forced workers from battleship island
But how easily are they forgotten
Left unseen, unknown, unnoticed, depreciated, buried
in our busy minds searching for petty complaints
in our hearts slicing out space for others
in a world where nothing is to trust, not even yourself
How easily are we forgotten
by no other than ourselves
censured by American minds
shamed by fractured English
embarrassed by difference
But what are we hiding for?
Perhaps our pragmatic minds can no longer worry about such things
Maybe we’ve grown too numb to care about how we even exist
Or it might just be because our lives are too comfortable to be grateful for a nation,
Perhaps we’re allowing ourselves to be unseen, unknown, unnoticed, depreciated, buried again
Or did we just give up embracing identity all together?
The Independence every nation fought so hard for,
means liberty, free from outside control
Free from prejudice and discrimination
Free to expressing nationality, culture, and identity
Don’t forget identity so many of your ancestors died for
Don’t forget history rode a rocky path
To let you exist exactly how you are
Commemorating all sacrifices made for Korean independence, I write...
In Memories of My Roots
5000 years make history
A history 36 years of colonization cannot take away
A small peninsula standing strong among big nations
A fearless patriotism lighting up its ceaseless fire
People that never exchanged their Korean names for life
People willing to die for the name of their nation
People who had such unyielding stubbornness
100 years tell a story
A story of a family
A grandmother who has lived through pains of Japanese colonization,
A mother who has lived with the stories of her mother’s pain,
A child who has lived on tests about countless stories of her ancestors’ pain
33 lead activists in one voice,
read aloud the Korean Declaration of Independence
that no power in this world could ever suppress their nationhood
Thousands of angels in white raised their flag and cried hurray
All in the public eye
Exposed with no shame
Non-violent shouting stronger than brutal Japanese armies
Piled deaths for a single death wish
6264, the number of cards found 45 years later,
of people under surveillance of the Japanese rule
out of 75000, an estimated number of unknown independence activists
A 17 year-old girl, in all bravery
who led non-violent independence movement, tortured to death
A 27 year-old poet
who refused the ban of Korean language in his 144 beautiful poems
Thousands of students
who valued nation over their nameless bodies
And countless number of commoners
who refused to let go their national identity
A symbol of history made by people
who wished nothing but their nation’s independence
A trail of nameless sacrifices we must remember
3.1, the day we must not forget
Remember those who rebuilt the country
Remember common heros who made history
Remember their shoutout
100 years later,
27, the number of comfort women still surviving
Still fighting all their lives for a simple apology
Unknown, constantly rewritten numbers of surviving forced workers from battleship island
But how easily are they forgotten
Left unseen, unknown, unnoticed, depreciated, buried
in our busy minds searching for petty complaints
in our hearts slicing out space for others
in a world where nothing is to trust, not even yourself
How easily are we forgotten
by no other than ourselves
censured by American minds
shamed by fractured English
embarrassed by difference
But what are we hiding for?
Perhaps our pragmatic minds can no longer worry about such things
Maybe we’ve grown too numb to care about how we even exist
Or it might just be because our lives are too comfortable to be grateful for a nation,
Perhaps we’re allowing ourselves to be unseen, unknown, unnoticed, depreciated, buried again
Or did we just give up embracing identity all together?
The Independence every nation fought so hard for,
means liberty, free from outside control
Free from prejudice and discrimination
Free to expressing nationality, culture, and identity
Don’t forget identity so many of your ancestors died for
Don’t forget history rode a rocky path
To let you exist exactly how you are