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Review: ‘Sulwe’ Sends a Powerful Message of Love

Oscar award-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o’s first picture book Sulwe is a poignant and beautifully illustrated story that acts as a mirror for dark-skinned Black children who are poorly represented in literature.

It sends a powerful message of self-love and offers a window into a perspective that’s often ignored. But most importantly, it critiques how we, as a society, need to change not only our language but also challenge our internal biases.

After being teased by classmates for her midnight-colored skin, Sulwe, who comes from a multihued family, goes on a mission to obtain light skin like that of her sister, Mich. She tries everything from rubbing her skin with an eraser and putting on her mother’s makeup to eating food that is “bright” and “light” to achieve “the color of high noon” skin tone that she wants to gain acceptance from her peers. When those skin lightening attempts do not work, Sulwe prays that she will wake up in the morning with light skin, only to arise the next morning to see that she’s still dark.

Not even her mother’s words of, “Brightness is not in your skin, my love. Brightness is just who you are,” can console her. One night a star sent by the Night comes down from the sky and takes Sulwe on a starry adventure, telling her the story of the sisters, Day and Night.

Sulwe learns that at the beginning of time, the sisters weren’t viewed the same. Night was also mistreated for her darkness by humans, called “ugly,” “scary,” and “bad,” while her sister Day was praised. Night runs away, leaving them with only her sister Day, to never see darkness again. But when Day grew too long, the humans wished to have Night back to get the “deepest rest.” Day showed her sister that there was elegance in her darkness, and that’s when she was the most beautiful.

Read the full article at Black Girl Nerds

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Raising Dion and the Failure of Inclusion Riders

Why didn’t Michael B. Jordan, who lobbied on a platform of “inclusion” for the last two years, allow the space for dark-skinned black actors to win?

In 2017 Netflix announced it ordered a 10-episode season based on the comic and the short trailer, Raising Dion, with the executive producing helmed by Michael B. Jordan’s Outlier Society. The work gained mainstream attention two years prior after Dennis Liu’s promotional trailer for his comic went viral. It featured the ups and downs of a widowed, single African-American mother (Nicole) raising her son (Dion), who possesses superpowers. For viewers, it was fresh, offering a new twist on the traditional superhero origin story, and telling it through the perspective of a powerless parent who’s already experiencing a more familiar form of “otherness.”

The report also revealed that Liu was signed on to direct the first episode. In a released statement to dedicated fans, Liu spoke on his commitment to diversity and expressed enthusiasm about working with Netflix: “I started this project many years ago because I wanted to see more diverse representation on film and television and I’m excited to partner with Netflix, who I know shares that commitment. More than ever, we need more stories told from different points of view and my hope with Raising Dion is to create a cinematic experience for all families that will lift your spirits and make you laugh and cry.”

The response to the 2015 comic trailer was overwhelmingly positive, with viewers expressing that the comic was an absolute necessity after the repeated film, television, and award show whitewashing failures (Dragonball Z, Avatar: The Last Airbender, #OscarsSoWhite). Liu and the comic’s illustrator Jason Piperberg revealed in an interview with Fusion that the choice to make Nicole and Dion Black was purposeful—recognizing the high demand for diversity in media. They gave viewers a glimpse of a brighter future with bodies of work geared towards representing the marginalized. On March 7th, 2018, Michael B. Jordan announced he’d be adopting an inclusion rider—a condition that would require filmmakers to meet diversity benchmarks for their cast and crew—at his production company Outlier Society Productions. He’s frequently credited for other companies following suit and has created a campaign on the platform of inclusivity.

read more @ Splice Today AN: I wrote a piece about Netflix’s Raising Dion, its colorist casting, and inclusion. It was published by Splice Today.

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Letter to the RWA Board regarding For Such a Time by Kate Breslin

For Such a Time by Kate Breslin is an inspirational historical romance between a Nazi concentration camp commander and a Jewish prisoner. It was nominated by the Romance Writers of America for Best First Book and Best Inspirational Romance in 2014. It won neither category, but the book’s presence as a nominee has upset a growing number of people. 

At Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, we undertake a community review project to try to give every RITA_nominated book a review before the awards are announced. The review for this book was written by a guest reviewer named Rachel, and it is extraordinarily good in my opinion.

Rose Lerner and her BFF have compiled a collection of the 5-star reviews for this book, as well.

After the RITA awards, which were held on July 25, 2014, I wrote a letter to the Board of Directors of Romance Writers of America to explain (or try to explain) why this book’s nominations were so offensive and upsetting. I sent this letter via email and received a response from the president of RWA. But in the conversations I’ve had online over the last few weeks, I’ve suggested people let the board know about their feelings as well. 

So if it helps anyone who wants to clarify why this book’s nomination (and its publication at all) are so upsetting and offensive, here is the text of my letter: 

July 27, 2015 Dear RWA Board of Directors:

This is one of the most difficult letters I’ve had to write, because each time I try to explain why I’m upset, and why I’m writing, I become more angry. But I’m deeply disturbed and distressed that For Such a Time by Kate Breslin was nominated for a RITA as Best First Book and Best Inspirational Romance.

If you’re not familiar with this book, the heroine, described by the publisher’s cover copy as a “blonde and blue-eyed Jewess,” is a prisoner in Theresienstadt, a Nazi concentration camp where over over 140,000 Jews were held. A quarter of the inmates there died of starvation and disease, and more than 90,000 were deported to Auschwitz and other extermination camps, where they were killed. By the end of World War II, a little over 17,000 people had survived Theresienstadt.

The hero of For Such a Time is an SS commandant who saves the heroine from being killed at Dachau, believing that she is not Jewish despite being raised in a Jewish family. He brings her to Theresienstadt to work as his personal secretary. So this is a romance between a Jewish prisoner and a Nazi officer who was in charge of a concentration camp.

To put it mildly, I don’t see this setup as an imbalance of power that could possibly be redeemed in a romance narrative, nor do I think the setting and characterization is remotely romantic. But I think this issue is much larger than my individual opinion.

The book is a retelling of the book of Esther set during the Holocaust, an ambitious undertaking to be sure. But in addition to the attempt at redeeming a hero who is a Nazi commander, at the end of the book, the heroine converts to Christianity, a narrative decision that also insensitive and offensive. Christianity is what redeems the heroine and the hero, and again, I’m at a loss for words to fully explain how and why this is so objectionable. But I will try.

In the Holocaust, over 6 million Jews, and more than 17 million people in total were killed by the Nazis. In For Such a Time, the hero is redeemed and forgiven for his role in a genocide. The stereotypes, the language, and the attempt at redeeming an SS officer as a hero belittle and demean the atrocities of the Holocaust. The heroine’s conversion at the end underscores the idea that the correct path is Christianity, erases her Jewish identity, and echoes the forced conversions of many Jews before, during, and after the Holocaust.

I am addressing each step in the process of this book by writing to the author, the editor, the head of the publishing house, and of course you, the board of the RWA. I know many of you personally and have a great deal of respect for the responsibilities you carry. I know that you don’t each personally oversee the RITA nominations, nor do you personally judge each book.

But the fact that this book was nominated in two categories is deeply hurtful, and I believe creates an environment where writers of faiths other than Christianity, not just Jewish writers, feel unwelcome. It certainly had that effect on me, because I don’t understand exactly how so many judges agreed that a book so offensive and insensitive was worthy of the RWA’s highest honor. But clearly enough did so, and the result for me as an RWA member is a feeling of distrust and pain, and concern that my reaction and feelings may not be heard.

I know that books like For Such a Time by Kate Breslin do not happen in a vacuum. More than one person had to agree that this story was worth writing, worth editing, worth publishing, and then worth nominating for the RITA as Best First Book and Best Inspirational Romance. I question the judgment of those who evaluated this book in the first round, and am, to be honest, very thankful that it did not win.

I have watched RWA enact some terrific programs and amend rules to reflect how the genre has changed for the better. I think this year’s conference was one of the best, especially given the difficult and complicated topics addressed in various sessions. I know each of you wants to advance the reputation and the professional community of romance and the women who write it. The nomination of this book does neither of those things. 

I hope that in the future, there is a way to ensure that a book so deeply offensive and insensitive is not among those honored as the best in romance.

Sincerely,

Sarah Wendell RWA Member

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On For Such a Time by Kate Breslin and Writing the Holocaust

You might not be aware but a few weeks ago, a book called For Such a Time by Kate Breslin was up for a RITA from the Romance Writers of America. It’s an Emmy or an Oscar of romance writing. The book was published in 2014 and I had personally never heard of it prior to reading the Smart Bitches review of it. That is what I’ve linked to as I’d rather not link to its Amazon or Goodreads profiles.

In short, the book is a retelling of the Book of Esther (a Jewish story about a strong Jewish woman, who saves her people, and keeps her faith, and is not a romance) in which a Nazi camp commander saves a Jewish woman from Dachau and takes her to Theresienstadt in then-Czechoslovakia. There, they fall in love, and through a magically appearing Bible, find Jesus, and save Jews. At the end, the woman converts to Christianity because that’s her redemption arc.

There are multiple factors at play here. First, the author, Kate Breslin, co-opted the horrific, unimaginable tragedy that happened within living memory to other people to promote her own agenda (evangelical/inspirational Christianity). Second, her agent, her publisher, and multiple RWA judges, not to mention the HUNDREDS of reviews on retail sies and Goodreads, did not think this was problematic. Third, the way we, across religions, have begun to approach the Holocaust is problematic and dangerous.

I could tell you about the microaggressions I experience as a Jewish woman regarding the Holocaust. I can tell you that people told me so often that I was “lucky” to have blonde hair blue eyed (like the heroine of Breslin’s book) because I “would have probably survived the Holocaust.” I began to adopt it as my own line, a way of deflecting the comment before it came. I can tell you that people have told me to “stop playing the Holocaust card.” And I can tell you that while I wish the Jewish national identity did not have to cling so tightly to its tragedies, it is a privilege the rest of you experience that you do not.

Over at Smart Bitches, the review is absolutely on point. Here, Rose Lerner goes through the problematic five star reviews of the book. Here, Smart Bitches’ Sarah Wendell wrote a brave and important open letter.

And I, KK Hendin, India Valentin, Dahlia Adler and others have been on Twitter. I’m adding my long form response here in hopes that Breslin, her publisher, RWA, the judges, and the readers and reviewers consider Jewish voices that they co-opted, stole from, offended, undermined and erased through the publication and award of this book.

In the book, the commander is the head of Theresienstadt. For those who don’t know, Theresienstadt was the ‘model camp’ used to show the Red Cross that things weren’t “so bad”. In reality, 140,000 people were interned there and just over 17,000 people survived it and the deportations to Auschwitz. The commander of that camp made people stand out in freezing temperatures until they literally dropped dead. He killed thousands of children. He oversaw the deportations to Auschwitz where a small percentage survived. He watched tens of thousands of people die of disease and starvation in his ‘model camp’. And Breslin, her publishers, her readers, and RWA judges found that person worthy of redemption. Not only worthy of, but exceptional. Romantic.

If that’s your definition of a romantic hero…I have no words for you. I didn’t realize that genocide turned so many people on, but there you go.

Part of this is the glorification of forgiveness and the idea that every person is redeemable. There was a good conversation I had on Twitter about this and I understand these are religious and fundamental differences between people. I don’t think mass genocide is a forgivable thing. Kate Breslin, her publishers, her readers, and RWA does.

Part of this is evangelical Christianity’s relationship with Jewish people (not with Judaism, let’s be clear) and Israel. Let’s be clear: we are people. We are not anyone’s tickets into heaven. We are not your Chosen people.

Part of this is that anti-Semitism in America wears many masks, and one of them is silence. It is as violent as the others. Silence is not neutrality. Silence allows, if not fosters, oppression, aggression, and erasure. If you are silent on this book, please take a moment to examine why you are silent.

In Kate Breslin’s book, there is an unequal power dynamic. There is no consent. What you are celebrating is rape, and it happened to many women during the Holocaust. He has all the power. She has none of it. Her life is in danger. She cannot consent in this case. That is rape. What happened is rape and rape is not romantic. And it’s certainly not inspirational.

What happened here is that Kate Breslin stole a tragedy that wasn’t hers to promote her own personal agenda. And in doing so, she contributed to the erasure of both victims and survivors of the Holocaust. Her book is anti-Semitic, violent, and dangerous. It glorifies and redeems a Nazi, while removing all of the Jewish woman’s agency and forcing her to convert to Christianity in order for her arc to be considered redemption. It is, in fact, exactly what has been done to the Jewish people throughout history. For longer than Christianity has been a religion, Jews across the world have been forced to convert or to hide their Judaism to save their lives. That is violence. That is erasure. Kate Breslin’s book is violence and erasure.

And as a Jewish woman who writes romance, I feel betrayed. Betrayed by my fellow romance readers. Betrayed by the people who published this. Betrayed by the judges who allowed it to get past the first round much less onto the ballot. Betrayed by the organization whose silence was support. Betrayed by everyone who has remained silent on this, who hasn’t called it out.

It is not easy to be Jewish in America. Many think it is because of stereotypes, but when push comes to shove, especially online, we turn toward our own and huddle close. It’s a collective memory safety measure. We have only ever been safest in communities made entirely of Jews. There are places in America where I am safer to say I am queer than I am Jewish. I talk more about queerness than Jewishness because of the backlash I’ve received for my Judaism. When discussions of diversity and racism come up, we are excluded.

But, as Justina Ireland and I were saying on Twitter yesterday, the Venn Diagram of racists and anti-Semites is a circle.

The discussion last night on Twitter was draining and exhausting. It is hard to shout about this for weeks. I admire Sarah so much for that open letter and my fellow Jewish writers and readers who were speaking up. I’m grateful for our allies who signal boosted.

I asked during the discussion when non-Jewish people learned about the Holocaust as I cannot remember a time when I didn’t know about it.

The responses were illuminating. Most people learned in late elementary school, some as late as high school and into college. Some learned in units during history or social science classes. But most learned because they read books like Devil’s Arithmetic, Night, The Diary of Anne Frank, Number the Stars in English/Language Arts classes. I worry that by teaching nonfiction right next to fiction, we’re subconsciously distancing the Holocaust from real life. From ‘truth’. That it’s being filed away in minds as fiction.

I know that the Holocaust is hard to wrap our heads around. 6 million Jews, and roughly 5-6 million other victims, including Roma, disabled people, gay people, political prisoners, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. That’s more people than any of us have ever seen standing in one place. That’s more people than live in New York City. That’s an incomprehensible number of lives and stories that went up in smoke. And there are more victims than we will ever know: there are mass graves and bodies all over the forests of Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Hungary, France. Not everyone made it to camps. I know this is hard to comprehend and I know that books and movies are increasingly our only access point for information about the Holocaust as survivors pass away.

But it’s alarming to me the number of people who learned late in life. Or who considered late elementary school to be early. For Jews, the Holocaust is something we carry with us everywhere. It is always with us. It informs our identity, our way of moving through the world, our holidays, our grandparents’ experiences, how we interact with food and triggers. My father won’t buy German cars. I won’t drink Fanta. There are ways the Holocaust lingers because it fundamentally changed Jewish identity, even in the wake of previous genocides and ethnic cleansings.

I am the granddaughter of a camp liberator. I am the great-granddaughter of pogrom survivors. I have stood on the edge of Babi Yar and wondered if the dirt beneath my feet was made from the bones of my relatives who died there.

The Holocaust is more than a single story. It is more than a book read in a classroom or Schnidler’s List. It is millions and millions and millions of stories extinguished. That we will never know. That’s what the Holocaust is. Not was, but is. History is present tense for some things.

Writing about the Holocaust is not something to do lightly.

As a white American, I wouldn’t touch a romance involving an African-American slave because there is no way—none—that I could handle that properly. Because you can research so many things, but you can’t research collective memory and the way that affects you personally. You can’t. I can’t access that certain empathy, that certain feeling, that way of being and feeling in a world that isn’t your own that I would need to in order to tell that story.

Just because you have the idea of a story doesn’t mean that you should, or have the right to, write it.

And if you decide to write about the Holocaust, and you are not Jewish, I recommend going to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Go slowly. Listen. Watch. Read. And when you get to the shoes, stand there until you realize that’s a fraction, maybe a 1/1000th, of the volume, from one camp. Just one camp.

When you write about another group’s tragedy, your goal should be First, do no harm. Kate Breslin, Bethany House publishers, her agent, the readers, the judges, and in allowing this to be nominated, Romance Writers of America, failed that critical first step.

Please, for the generations that come next who will have no survivors to speak to them, no survivors who saw evil walking around in leather boots and not in the pages of their books as romantic hero, do not do what Breslin and her people did. Do no harm.

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OH HEY GUYS COVER REVEAL FOR THE NAMELESS CITY BOOK 1!!!!!! YAY! Entertainment Weekly has the scoop, as well as a short interview with me right here! 

Oh my sweet lord, this cover. It nearly killed me. We went through a massive design process, I think I literally broke one designer, because I’ve no idea what happened to her, and at one point (in MAY) we thought the cover was done, but then marketing sent it back and was like “make it better.” Which is fine! I wanted the cover to be the very best it could be, it was just an unusual experience for me. For my past books (Friends with Boys, Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong), we did like 3 cover mock ups, one was picked and there were maybe a couple revisions and then it was done. Doing the cover for The Nameless City was something like a 6 month process. Crazy! But I’m happy with it, and more importantly, my publisher (and marketing ;)) is happy with it too.

I’m going to post cover process stuff later (today or tomorrow), so you can see the insanity that was designing this cover. XD 

Cover colours are by Hilary Sycamore (my interior colourist, Jordie Bellaire was too busy to colour the cover). Oh, and the two interior pages are non-sequential (colours by Jordie Belliare).

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Check out some of my fellow SCAD students work. :)

hey guys!! i’m finally uploading my senior film, trash cat! i hope you guys like it because it was seriously a blast to work on and such a great learning experience :3 some awesome people who helped me (and whose tumblrs i know) are zbogucki, cameronbutlerart, dawnmbennett, jingleschram, and inkohit!

also be sure to check it out on vimeo so you can watch it in hd~

ALSO ALSO there is a post credits scene! please watch through til the end!

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Here’s some backgrounds I painted for Nickelodeon’s new series Pig Goat Banana Cricket! It premieres on July 18. The lovely background designs are drawn by Randol Eagles, Miguel Gonzalez, and Jacob Winkler.

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Out tomorrow! #WeAreRobin #DC #comics #dccomics #batman #robin #newcomicbookday

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As promised here my little serie of prints. I made few corrections on each illustrations from what I posted previously.

This is a limited time print. I will remove it in 3 months (the 28th of June 2015).

http://society6.com/nesskain

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robochai:

davidallanduncan:

comixology:

A comiXologist recommends: From Sweet Tea to BD: An Angoulême Excursion

by: Jen Keith

Once upon a time, I was a student at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). During my senior year I had the distinct pleasure of spending two months in France, gorging myself on French comics (bandes dessinées or “BD” for short) and falling head over heels for the beautiful books I brought back with me. I even attended the comics festival in Angoulême which this anthology focuses on, and I still consider it one of the best experiences I’ve ever had.

This study abroad opportunity continues on, providing students an experience unique to their class yet achingly familiar for a graduate looking fondly back on their own trip. As I read this book, I was reminded of so many places and sights: the statue of Herge’s head, Hugo Pratt’s Corto Maltese standing watch over the water, murals by comic artists turning the entire city into a work of art, and how it seems inevitable that there will always be at least one day that it pours.

From Sweet Tea to BD: an Angoulême Excursion is a delightful collection of (mostly) one page travelogue comics by the 25 students and one professor that went on the Lacoste, France trip this year. Each comic highlights moments that stood out in each student’s adventure, be it a shared moment with friends or their overall feelings about seeing the city and meeting the artists whose work they treasure. There’s a sense of getting to know these up-and-coming comic artists through what is important and worthy of sharing. From the adorable title to bonus photos from the trip in the back, it’s a solid collection capturing the humorous and heartfelt experiences many find upon entering the event.

If you’ve attended the festival, as a student or not, and seen the beautiful city of Angoulême, then brace yourself for some intense nostalgia. At worst, you’ll laugh at the antics of these rambunctious SCADlings; at best, you’ll see yourself in these pages and be reminded of how comics, no matter the language, affect every fan, student or casual reader alike.

[Read From Sweet Tea to BD: An Angoulême Excursionon comiXology]

Jen Keith is a Digital Editor at comiXology, comic artist, music addict, and misses France, French comic shops, and French food on a daily basis.

I worked on this!

It’s out!!

Check out my friends work!

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protip: never ask a writer what they write about. they will not know how to answer.

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Devouring a book in one sitting is one of the most satisfying things in the world.

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Call for Staff: Persephone’s Daughters, Lit Magazine

For those of you that don’t know, one of Tumblr’s own, Meggie Royer, otherwise known as writingsforwinter, is being bravely ambitious enough to start her own literary magazine called Persephone’s Daughters. The magazine will seek to showcase work which will empower female survivors of abuse of any kind. It’s a novel idea, and a potentially brilliant means of offering a sense of support and community to survivors. Meggie is currently looking for people to offer a lending hand with the magazine, so if you are interested in applying for a staff position, please find more details here. This is a great opportunity if you are looking to gain some experience in editing/publishing, or even if you are just interested in playing a role in giving a platform to the many talented little-known writers in the online community.

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I love rainy days, empty coffee shops, smell of old books and the colour of your eyes

(via itcuddles)

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I would encourage the questioner to do their research. I know that in the US sometimes immigrants changed both their first and/or last names, and it was not always because of being “mixed race” or “adopted”, sometimes it had to do with fitting into the society around them. Here’s an article from the New York Times that talks about 19th and 20th century immigrant, a passage reads:

For many 19th- and 20th-century immigrants or their children, it was a rite of passage: Arriving in America, they adopted a new identity. Charles Steinweg, the German-born piano maker, changed his name to Steinway (in part because English instruments were deemed to be superior). Tom Lee, a Tong leader who would become the unofficial mayor of Chinatown in Manhattan, was originally Wong Ah Ling. Anne Bancroft, who was born in the Bronx, was Anna Maria Louisa Italiano. The rationale was straightforward: adopting names that sounded more American might help immigrants speed assimilation, avoid detection, deter discrimination or just be better for the businesses they hoped to start in their new homeland. Today, most experts agree, that traditional immigrant gambit has all but disappeared.

The article is US specific but I wouldn’t be surprised if non-Europeans who migrated to some country in Europe felt the need to do the same especially with the amount of racism that there was and still is. Also it depends on the background of your characters as well and the time period. Nowadays people might not find the need to do what immigrants in the past did, but as I said before you need to do actual RESEARCH on this topic

Here’s an article about a couple who was trying to change their last name to a German one to avoid job discrimination.

This was a quick search but this is your story and you need to make the effort to learn about the history of the country (it’s policies on immigration, etc.) the Korean people who migrated to Germany, etc. to get a better understanding so that your story will be historically accurate. 

Taken from Wikipedia

References

^ Jump up to:a b “재외동포현황/Current Status of Overseas Compatriots”. South Korea: Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. 2009. Retrieved 2009-05-21.

Jump up^ “Korean Buddhist organisations in Germany”. World Buddhist Directory (Buddha Dharma Education Association). 2006. Retrieved 2008-10-12.

Jump up^ Cyrus, Norbert (March 2005). ��Active Civic Participation of Immigrants in Germany”. Building Europe with New Citizens? An Inquiry into the Civic Participation of Naturalised Citizens and Foreign Residents in 25 Countries. European Commission. p. 36. Retrieved 2009-03-09.; cites Yoo 1996, listed below

^ Jump up to:a b c d Choi, Sun-Ju; Lee, You-Jae (January 2006). “Umgekehrte Entwicklungshilfe - Die koreanische Arbeitsmigration in Deutschland (Reverse Development Assistance - Korean labour migration in Germany)” (PDF) (in German). Seoul: Goethe Institute. |chapter= ignored (help)

Jump up^ Creutzenberg, Jan (2007-05-22). “Two Stories of Exploitation and Integration: Double lecture on Korean and Vietnamese work migration in Germany”. OhmyNews. Retrieved2007-05-30.

^ Jump up to:a b Schönwälder, Karen (March 2003). “Why Germany’s guestworkers were largely Europeans: The selective principles of post-war labour recruitment policy”. Ethnic and Racial Studies 27 (2): 248–265.doi:10.1080/0141987042000177324.

Jump up^ Kang, Tai S. (March 1990). “An ethnography of Koreans in Queens, New York, and elsewhere in the United States”.Ethnographic Exploratory Research Report #8. Center for Survey Methods Research, Bureau of the Census. Retrieved2007-05-30.

Jump up^ Kim, Chang-hui (1997). “동백림사건요？ 코미디였지요”. Donga Ilbo. Retrieved 2007-05-30.

Jump up^ Cumings, Bruce (2005). Korea’s place in the sun : a modern history (Updated ed. ed.). New York: W.W. Norton. p. 346.ISBN 978-0393327021.

^ Jump up to:a b Gil, Yun-hyeong (2004-10-30). “독일, 당시 국교단절 검토: 67년 윤이상씨등 서울로 납치 ‘동백림사건’ 항의 (Germany considered breaking off relations at the time: Protests over the 1967 “East Berlin incident” kidnapping of Isang Yun and others)“. The Hankyoreh. Retrieved 2007-05-30.

Jump up^ Wang (왕), Gil-hwan (길환) (2011-04-14). 파독광부들 “국가유공자로 인정해 달라”. Yonhap News (in Korean). Retrieved2011-12-08.

Jump up^ Armstrong, Charles K. (May 2005). “Fraternal Socialism: The International Reconstruction of North Korea, 1953–62”. Cold War History 5 (2): 161–187. doi:10.1080/1462740500061160.

Jump up^ Frank, Rüdiger (December 1996). Die DDR und Nordkorea. Der Wiederaufbau der Stadt Hamhŭng von 1954–1962 (in German). Aachen: Shaker. ISBN 3-8265-5472-8.

Jump up^ Ryu, Kwon-ha (2007-02-13). “North Korean husband of German woman is alive”. JoongAng Ilbo. Retrieved2007-05-31.

Jump up^ Green, Chris (2011-05-31). “An Anti-Reform Marriage of Convenience”. Daily NK. Retrieved 2011-06-04.

Jump up^ Pak, Sung-jo (2001-03-11). “Germany Gets Maximum Concessions from NK”. Chosun Ilbo. Retrieved2007-05-31.[dead link]

Jump up^ Onishi, Norimitsu (2005-08-09). “In a Corner of South Korea, a Taste of German Living”. The New York Times. Retrieved2007-05-30.

Jump up^ “Overseas Korean Educational Institutions: Germany”. National Institute for International Education Development, Republic of Korea. 2007. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2007-05-31.

Jump up^ Whittall, Arnold (Spring 2000). “Unsuk Chin in focus: Meditations and mechanics”. Musical Times (The Musical Times, Vol. 141, No. 1870) 141 (1870): 21–32.doi:10.2307/1004366. JSTOR 1004366.

Jump up^ Meltzer, Bill (2006-07-14). “A hockey life on three continents”. NHL.com. Retrieved 2007-05-30.[dead link]

Jump up^ Ghost of the Berlin Wall Reappears

Jump up^ 실향민 2세 이은숙씨 베를린 장벽서 설치미술

Jump up^ Harden, Blaine (2010-02-22). “A family and a conscience, destroyed by North Korea’s cruelty”. Washington Post. Retrieved 2010-02-25.

Jump up^ Kajimura, Tai'ichiro (2004-12-10). “Democracy and National Security in South Korea: The Song Du Yol Affair”. Japan Focus. ISSN 1557-4660. Retrieved 2007-07-13.

Further Reading

Kim, Hae-soon (1997). “Koreans in Germany: the Story of Kwang-Chung Kim”. Occasional Papers of the Korean American Historical Society 3: 33–48. ISSN 1088-1964. Retrieved 2007-05-30.

Yoo, Jung-Sook (1996). Koreanische Immigranten in Deutschland: Interessensvertretung und Selbsorganisation. Hamburg: Verlag Dr. Kovač. ISBN 3-86064-502-1.

Schwekendiek, Daniel (2012). Korean Migration to the Wealthy West. New York: Nova Publishers. ISBN 978-1614703693.

Other websites that speak on Koreans migrating to Germany

Koreans Have Made It in Germany – 50 years of the Korean-German labour recruitment agreement

50 Years of Korean Migration to Germany

German Kim. History of Korean Immigration. 1945-2000. Summary

The influence of korean nurses’ immigration into Germany on the nursing culture and policy of the countries: a transnational perspective.

Korean immigration to Germany

Interview with Korean immigrants to Germany

The Korean Diaspora in Berlin Germany

I'm currently writing a story that has two siblings of Korean descent and I was just wondering if it would be bad to have their last name not a generally from Korea? Their last name that I gave them is Von right now which originates from Germany.

I don’t necessarily think it’s “bad” but I don’t know that it’s terribly realistic. You would have to have a good reason for the family name changing like that, so be sure you know their family’s history. To me it really only makes sense if they’re mixed race or adopted for them to have a last name of European origin. 

(Also, I do feel the need to point out that “Von” basically means “from” or “of” or something like that in German, and is usually only a part of a surname - i.e., Von Clausen or Von Hager. I haven’t done the research but I think it would be exceptionally rare for it to be an independent last name.) 

[cherrellerand]

On Discourse

Someone shared with me on twitter today a really hateful ask sent to them from someone identifying as a “nerd fighter” that included racial slurs and was generally tremendously hurtful. The ask in question was anonymous, so I have no idea who sent it, but just to be clear:

That’s not okay. That doesn’t represent nerdfighteria well, and while I’m very grateful to people who like my work and like sharing it, being mean to people–attacking them with racist or hateful comments–does nothing positive for me or my work or the nerdfighter community or anyone in the world. It makes us, as a species, a little bit smaller, and a little bit worse.

We all (including me!) struggle to imagine each other complexly and generously, and to have listening-focused conversations. But the great gift of the Internet is not just the chance to share; it’s also the chance to listen. I would encourage us to find better paths to better discourse. When I’m angry or outraged or defensive (which happens all the time when I’m online), I try really hard to take a step back and to try to be empathetic rather than merely angry. I think we should try to be kind to each other, and generous toward each other. Hateful anon asks and trolling and baiting people who disagree with you accomplishes nothing in the end, except making us all feel worse about ourselves and the overall quality of discourse online. 

[cherrellerand]

Check out this comic created by my friend 

Andriya Castaneda Castro! RATE IT as well!

One of the biggest institutions in the country obnubilates deep secrets. A research laboratory were several students are a component of cruel experimentation remains functioning under the school's tunnels. Keneth the new lower-income student is about to discover the hidden secrets due his classmates being involved in the mystery...little does he know what consequences lie ahead.... Story and Art by Ann and M.K Castaneda For some reason we cant change ''Karla Castaneda'' from the credits