Letters to My Hometown: Rheem Family
Daniel Han and his mother, Sue Rheem, are joined in dialogue by Daniel’s grandparents, In Whan Rheem and Sun Ok Hwang, as they reflect on all that their family had endured, witnessed, and overcome. A truly intergenerational conversation that touches upon how Korea’s tumultuous modern history disrupted familial relationships, the In Whan Rheem and Sun Ok Hwang describe life under Japanese occupation, where the elder Rheem’s father was imprisoned for dissident activity, and how his wife, Noh Gi-bok, would tend to him in prison despite the soldiers’ berating. They also speak on what people lost during the Korean War: jobs and homes, yes, but also family and whimsy.
Now, fifty years since leaving Korea, Mrs. Hwang notes that she feels no urgency to “return” home, instead choosing to adapt to the present. Sue Rheem feels similarly; for her, family is home, her sense of self attached not to a particular time or place, but with her loved ones, or, as Mrs. Hwang would say, their “network of love.” In documenting these conversations, the Rheem family tells us how even when our family histories contain episodes of displacement and unimaginable loss, the sanctuary of a family’s devotion remains grounded in the hometown that travels with them, one constituted not of soil but of stories and those who pass them along.
The 75 years of division and conflict from the Korean War have not only affected the first generation, who still long for their hometowns in North Korea, but also younger generations who have no memories of the conflict, yet many of whom have inherited the weight of uncertainty and the mission of searching for missing relatives.
This iteration of Letters to My Hometown invites audiences to listen and reflect upon intergenerational conversations of the Korean American community whose divided families have sustained the traumas of their homeland’s partition. Generously supported by American Friends Service Committee, these conversations aim to take steps toward transforming the intergenerational traumas of the Korean War into opportunities for collective remembering, learning, and healing.
