Aleph, UCLA Undergraduate Research Journal for the Humanities and Social Sciences

The issue of “comfort women,” sex slaves utilized by the Japanese army during World War II, is treated in this paper as a collective memory in the consciousness of South Koreans. This serves as the underlying basis for increased present tensions between the governments of South Korea and Japan. To understand the complexity of these painful experiences as a collective memory requires a discussion on the impact of colonization as well as on contemporary problems regarding a whitewashing of history and the utilization of public space for the memorialization of these women. The result of these factors is the exacerbation of tension between the South Korean and Japanese governments, mainly due to a widely perceived belief within South Korea regarding the Japanese government’s reluctance to engage in transparent discussions regarding history. This tension will likely impact cooperation between the two countries on issues in East Asia. The paper not only seeks to examine Japan-South Korea relations, but to emphasize the importance of focusing the narrative on the individual women who were subjected to such atrocities.