Hankyoreh honors my work on the U.S. and South Korea

One year ago I had the incredible honor of having my work on the United States and South Korea featured in Hankyoreh, a newspaper founded by courageous journalists forced out of their jobs during the Park and Chun dictatorships. 

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Hankyoreh posted this spread after the Consulate General in New York representing the government of Park Guen Hye complained to The Nation about an article I had written about Park’s repression of Korean trade unions, titled “In South Korea, a Dictator’s Daughter Cracks Down on Labor.”

This sparked a furious response inside Korea with even the opposition parties joining in the criticism of the government. Hankyoreh wrote a scathing editorial. The give-and-take I had with the Consulate General was later printed in The Nation’s letters section (scroll to the bottom for our exchange). As Park Guen Hye – “dejected, sleepless and alone” – huddles in the Blue House as the nation demands her resignation, her corruption and authoritarian practices are now clear to everyone – even her allies in the U.S. government.

As an American who has been concerned since an early age about my country’s relationship with South Korea, I was deeply touched by my colleagues’ response to Park’s actions in 2015. The Hankyoreh depiction of my work, from my reporting as a kid in Seoul of the 1960 Revolution against Syngman Rhee to the 1980 Gwangju Uprising, was the icing on the cake. I can’t thank the newspaper enough for this tribute.

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