For the Record a Documentary History of America Review Questions Answers

In 2009, a trip to Asia would change my life forever. That's when I first met "the grandmothers." Prior to that trip I knew very little nigh the atrocities that occurred during World State of war II in Asia—specifically, the institutionalized sexual slavery system that held captive more than 200,000 girls and young women. When I asked the elders in my family to tell me stories near the past, what it was like during the war, they would shake their heads slowly and somberly say, "没有什么好说的, 不好听 (Mei yoa shimo hao shio de bu hao tin)" which ways, "There'south nothing good to say, nothing adept to hear." And that was the end of my history lesson.

Every bit a "CBC" (Canadian Born Chinese), I oftentimes felt conflicted culturally. The North American approach is to speak out confronting injustice, while the Chinese way of dealing with hardship is to "吃苦 (chi ku)" which literally translates to "eat the bitterness." And of course, one must always "salve face" to preserve pride and award. I was first confronted with this dilemma at eight years old, afterward being sexually assaulted at home past a so-called family friend. I was paralyzed by the choices I could make, but either manner, I felt that my globe had already been shattered. I chose the temporary condolement and condom of keeping silent and, like the women of generations before me, I only learned to eat the bitterness.

Fast-forward 17 years, when I would meet the remarkable women in my film The Amends. History refers to them as "comfort women"—a term used by the Regal Japanese Army to draw the girls and women they forced into sexual slavery. Merely to me, they are the grandmothers. What started off as a journeying to uncover this night history of human atrocities soon turned into an exploration of perseverance.

When Korean survivor Kim Hak-sun first spoke out publicly in 1991, most five decades subsequently the end of World War II, she set up off a domino effect. Other women in their respective countries started to speak out, too, and the earth would hear testimony subsequently testimony from hundreds of women describing unimaginable crimes confronting them with the promise that justice would shortly follow. Xx-seven years afterward, their fight all the same continues.

Subsequently the first few years of spending time with Grandma Cao in Red china, Grandma Gil in Korea and Grandma Adela in the Philippines, information technology was clear that there was more to this affiliate in history, more merely the sexual slavery, more to these women that people weren't seeing. I came to acquire almost their lives later on the war and how they survived. The grandmothers had incredible resilience, made tremendous sacrifices and ultimately displayed the truthful power of the human spirit.

Over the course of six years, each of the communities that nosotros filmed demonstrated the importance of camaraderie. Knowing that you aren't alone and that y'all will be supported after disclosing your past can make the difference between speaking out versus living the balance of your life in silence and carrying the burden and pain of what you experienced as a victim. Order has perpetuated a civilization of shame that has resulted in decades, or fifty-fifty lifetimes of silence for survivors of sexual violence.

These days the Me As well and Time's Up movements are sparking a global dialogue that de-stigmatizes and reframes what it means to be a victim of sexual violence. The grandmothers accept taught me that although my past does not define me, the journey to come to terms with my past makes me who I am today. Discovering why I wanted to make this flick was extremely difficult, because I thought it was a story I wanted to tell, when, in fact, information technology became a story I e'er needed to tell. It's a story for the 8-year-old daughter within me that struggled to tell her ain family virtually the abuse. Information technology's a story for all the courageous grandmothers who survived months and years of sexual slavery. It's a story for all the survivors who never had the infinite to exist known exterior the ugly crimes committed confronting them. It's a story that brings to light the millions of untold stories of sexual violence that continue to go unheard.

Tiffany Hsiung

Director, The Apology

The Apology follows three women who were amidst the more 200,000 girls and young women kidnapped and forced into military sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese War machine in the years before and during World War Two. Seventy years after their imprisonment and after decades of living in silence and shame, the survivors in the film give their first-hand accounts for the record, seeking acknowledgment and an official apology with the promise that this horrific chapter of history not exist forgotten. As models of courage and perseverance, they cleave a path for others to find reconciliation and justice. And they challenge viewers to examine why sexual violence continues to permeate military conflicts today.

The Amends is an excellent tool for outreach and will be of special involvement to people who want to explore the following topics:

"condolement women"

disharmonize rape

constructions of manhood

gender studies

human rights

Japan

justice

Korea

militarized sexual violence

peace studies

rape

reconciliation

reparations

sexual slavery

sexual violence

trauma recovery

war

state of war crimes

wartime sexual violence

World War II

The Apology is well-suited for use in a multifariousness of settings and is especially recommended for utilize with:

• Your local PBS station
• Groups that have discussed previous PBS and POV films relating to war and war crimes, sexual violence, or objectification of women, including Lumo, The Storm Makers, The Reckoning, Hooligan Sparrow, The Look of Silence, Girl Model or Regarding State of war.
• Groups focused on any of the issues listed in the "Key Issues" department
• High school students, youth groups, and clubs
• Faith-based organizations and institutions
• Cultural, art and historical organizations, institutions, and museums
• Civic, congenial, and customs groups
• Academic departments and student groups at colleges, universities and high schools
• Community organizations with a mission to promote education and learning, such as local libraries.

This guide is an invitation to dialogue about a very difficult chapter of history. It is based on a conventionalities in the power of human connexion and designed for people who desire to utilise The Apology to engage family, friends, classmates, colleagues and communities in conversations well-nigh reconciliation, trauma, and the power of a story to understand the consequences of war and the power of healing. In dissimilarity to initiatives that foster debates in which participants endeavour to convince others that they are right, this certificate envisions conversations undertaken in a spirit of openness in which people attempt to empathize one another and expand their thinking by sharing viewpoints and listening actively.

The word prompts are intentionally crafted to help a wide range of audiences think more than deeply almost the bug in the film. Rather than attempting to accost them all, cull one or two that all-time meet your needs and interests. And be sure to leave fourth dimension to consider taking action. Planning adjacent steps can help people leave the room feeling energized and optimistic, even in instances when conversations have been difficult.

The subject matter of The Apology is intense and may provoke potent reactions, especially from victims of sexual assault and corruption, and their loved ones. Facilitators should keep an eye out for audition members who become especially upset. Be prepared to take them aside and follow up with a referral to local professionals and support services. Remember that people respond to trauma in different ways. In addition to tears or panic, trauma can look like: "spacing out," silence, laughter or jokes during "inappropriate" moments or anger.

For more detailed event planning and facilitation tips, visit www.pbs.org/pov/engage/.

Japanese Armed services Sexual Slavery

Between 1932 and 1945, an estimated 200,000 girls and young women were abducted past the Japanese military and forced into sexual slavery in military machine brothels. Women and girls were taken from Nihon, its colonies, and Japanese-occupied countries throughout Eastern asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Islands, including Korea, Taiwan, Communist china, the Philippines, and Republic of indonesia, among others. Girls were captured or lured away from their families with the promise of a task, and so detained in facilities, called "comfort stations," where they were systematically raped and abused by Japanese armed forces personnel. Throughout history, systemic rape and other forms of sexual violence take been used as weapons of war aimed at dehumanization, humiliation and the destruction of community bonds, and is now considered a state of war crime by the United nations Role of the Loftier Commissioner for Human Rights.

Women were recruited from existing brothels in Nippon. In Korea and Taiwan, the Japanese authorities licensed contractors to recruit or otherwise procure women, oftentimes through kidnapping or coercion and sometimes in collaboration with local governments and police; in other occupied countries, the armed services kidnapped women or forced local leaders to provide them. While women entered "condolement stations" nether dissimilar circumstances, they are considered victims of sexual practice trafficking by today'due south standards. In addition to sexual attack, they endured other forms of violence such as beatings and stabbings, along with sexually transmitted infections, unwanted pregnancies and psychological trauma.[three] Most of the women did not survive - it's estimated that 87% died as a result of their experiences. Some survivors were able to render to their families afterward the war. All the same, due to cultural taboos regarding sex and morality, as well as the complicity of the colonized Korean state and lack of public knowledge about armed services sexual slavery, the women were oftentimes viewed as "defiled", and rejected by their local communities.

In 1990, a coalition of activist groups formed to support the survivors and demand redress from Japan. Japan had not all the same acknowledged its part in the atrocities, insisting that the women were voluntarily serving as prostitutes. In 1991, a Korean woman named Kim Hak-shortly became the start survivor to share her story publicly and to need redress from the Japanese authorities. Since and then, hundreds of women in Korea, the Philippines, China and across Asia, many of whom had stayed silent for decades, came forward to testify near their experiences.

Later Kim Hak-soon came frontward, a grouping of Korean survivors who were called halmoni—grandmother in Korean—filed a grade-activeness lawsuit against the Japanese government, enervating an official investigation, admission of war crimes, formal apology, and compensation. In 1992, afterwards a Japanese historian discovered bear witness proving that the Japanese military established and operated the "comfort stations", Prime Government minister Miyazawa issued a personal apology and launched two formal investigations. In 1995, Japan established the Asian Women's Fund, which provided compensation for the remaining survivors funded jointly by the government and individual donations. But many survivors and activists rejected this fund, arguing that it framed reparations as a generous moral human action rather than an admission of legal culpability for the government's war crimes. Indeed, a 2015 agreement between the governments of South Korea and Japan that established another national fund to intendance for the survivors still did not recognize Nippon'south legal responsibility. Advocates criticized the 2015 statement for its evasive wording most the state's institutional part in the atrocities and apologetic stance, the omission of the need for education and memorialization, and the absence of survivors and their advocates at the negotiating table.

The issue of sexual slavery during World State of war Ii is however contentious in Nippon, where the public is split on whether Japanese military sexual slavery constituted a war crime. Every bit role of the 2015 agreement, the Japanese regime called for the removal of a bronze statue of a young girl, which memorializes survivors, that was installed across from the Japanese embassy in Seoul in December 2011. In Jan 2017, Japan temporarily recalled its ambassador to South Korea in protest of an installation of another bronze girl statue virtually the Japanese consulate in Busan, and in October 2018, the city of Osaka terminated its 50-year sister city relationship with San Francisco over a "comfort woman" memorial. Equally of October 2018, in that location are 109 similar bronze daughter statues in South korea and 22 away, including x "comfort women" memorials in the Us.

Since 1992, activists with the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Armed forces Sexual Slavery by Japan (now called the Korean Quango for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Nippon) take staged weekly protests outside the Japanese diplomatic mission in Seoul. Equally of 2017, just 35 of the Korean grandmothers were alive, and their boilerplate age was 91. Some of the women live together in group homes in Seoul, and some nourish the protests regularly.

Advocacy groups working with survivors have five primary demands of the Japanese regime. First, an official amends accompanying a Cabinet or parliament resolution (rather than one that can be construed as one leader's personal view, such as the Prime Minister's letter issued in 2015); second, formal compensation to the victims; tertiary, lessons on this history in Japanese classes and textbooks; and finally, investigation of official policies that established and maintained the system of sexual slavery; and finally, memorialization of the survivors.

For further information on this period in history, please see:

Eye for Korean Legal Studies at Columbia Constabulary School: Military Sexual Slavery During Earth War II: The "Comfort Women" – https://world wide web.law.columbia.edu/korean-legal-studies/sexual-slavery-during-wwi-condolement-women-issue

Facing History and Ourselves: Rape as a Weapon of State of war –https://www.facinghistory.org/nanjing-atrocities/judgment-retention-legacy/rape-weapon-state of war

Fact Sheet on Japanese Military machine "Comfort Women" (The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus)

https://apjjf.org/-Asia-Pacific-Journal-Characteristic/4829/article.html

Sources

Bemma, Adam. "Republic of korea: Earth's Longest Protestation over Comfort Women." South korea News | Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera, 8 Sept. 2017, www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/09/due south-korea-world-longest-protest-comfort-women-170908024721239.html.

Fact Sheet on Japanese Military "Comfort Women" (The Asia-Pacific Periodical: Japan Focus)

https://apjjf.org/-Asia-Pacific-Journal-Feature/4829/commodity.html

Hsu, Nicole. "Condolement Women Dispute: The Pursuit of Justice Continues", Claremont Journal of Police and Public Policy, 3 November 2017.

"Item ix(a) of the Provisional Agenda." United nations Commission on Human Rights, Economical and Social Quango, http://www.awf.or.jp/pdf/h0004.pdf.

Kindig, Jessie. "Nightmares Must Be Told." Jacobin Mag, www.jacobinmag.com/2017/08/southward-korea-nippon-comfort-stations.

Lee, Sue R. "Comforting the comfort women: Who can make Japan pay." University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Economic Constabulary. 24 (2003): 518.

Lynch, Ami. "Condolement Women." Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 6 June 2018, www.britannica.com/result/comfort-women#ref1192179.

"Rape Equally a Weapon of War." Facing History and Ourselves, www.facinghistory.org/nanjing-atrocities/judgment-memory-legacy/rape-weapon-war.

"Sexual Slavery During WWI: The 'Comfort Women' Issue." Columbia Police School, www.law.columbia.edu/korean-legal-studies/sexual-slavery-during-wwi-comfort-women-event.

Son, Elizabeth W. Embodied Reckonings: "Comfort Women," Performance, and Transpacific Redress. Ann

Arbor: University of Michigan Printing, 2018.

Son, Elizabeth W. "'Condolement Women': Traveling Betwixt History and Hope." Los Angeles Review of Books, 5 February. 2018, https://web log.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/comfort-women-traveling-history-hope/

Taylor, Adam. "Analysis | Why Japan Is Losing Its Battle against Statues of Colonial-Era 'Comfort Women'." The Washington Post, WP Company, 21 Sept. 2017, world wide web.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/09/21/why-japan-is-losing-its-boxing-confronting-statues-of-colonial-era-condolement-women/?utm_term=.a901b78e24df.

"The Cruel History of Japan'south 'Comfort Women'." History.com, A&E Television Networks, world wide web.history.com/news/comfort-women-nihon-military-brothels-korea.

The ever-shifting sands of Japanese apologies by Tessa Morris-Suzuki

http://world wide web.eastasiaforum.org/2016/02/22/the-ever-shifting-sands-of-japanese-apologies/

What happened after the war? (Fight for Justice)

http://fightforjustice.info/?page_id=2770&lang=en

Why did the Japanese military institute the "comfort women" system? (Fight for Justice)

http://fightforjustice.info/?page_id=2762&lang=en

Selected People Featured in The Apology

Grandma Gil Won Ok – 86-year-onetime survivor living in South Korea

Meehyang Yoon – Co-Chair, Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (and frequent support for Grandma Gil)

Hwang Seon Hee – Grandma Gil'south son

Grandma Cao – 92-year-old survivor living in China

Li Gui Hua – Grandma Cao'southward daughter

Zhang Shaun Bing – writer, Comfort Women Survey Records

Adela – 80-yr-old survivor living in the Philippines

Eric – Grandma Adela's son

Immediately after the film, you may want to requite people a few tranquility moments to reverberate on what they take seen or pose a full general question (examples below) and give people some time to themselves to jot down or think about their answers earlier opening the discussion:

• What did you acquire from this picture? Did you gain a new insight?
• Describe a moment or scene in the movie that you found specially disturbing or moving. What was it about that scene that was especially compelling for y'all?
• Did annihilation in the film surprise you? Was anything familiar?
• If you could ask anyone in the film a single question, whom would y'all ask and what would you desire to know?
• At the end of your discussion, to assistance people synthesize what they've experienced and move the focus from dialogue to action steps, you may want to choose i of these questions:
• What did you learn from this film that you wish everyone knew? What would change if everyone knew it?
• If you could require 1 person (or i grouping) to view this film, who would it be? What do you lot promise their main takeaway would be?
• The story of these women is important considering ___________.
• Complete this judgement: I am inspired by this pic (or discussion) to __________.

Understanding the Trauma

Grandma Gil says, "I didn't know what state of war was. I didn't know what men were. I had no thought what was being taken from me..." What was being taken from her?

Consider the ways that the Grandmas' concrete and emotional scars intertwine. In what ways did their trauma linger even after they escaped from the comfort stations? What are the long-term consequences of:

• Being rendered sterile in a culture that values motherhood?
• Being raped at an historic period so immature you didn't know what sex was?
• Being forcibly impregnated by an enemy of your country and feeling that there was no choice but to kill your baby?
• Returning to communities where it was shameful to be a victim of rape?

Adela'southward son, Eric, guesses that his female parent kept her secret for and then long "considering she wanted to protect the family." How does the weight of such heavy secrets influence families? How did finally sharing her undercover change Adela and alter her relationship with her son?

For a time, all of the women featured tried to forget the suffering they endured. How does memory suppression both help and hinder the recovery process?

What do the survivors have in mutual with other people who have been imprisoned and tortured? What is it almost their situation that prevented their countries from treating them equally prisoners of war?

Zhang Shaun Bing observes that "Chinese survivors could not speak out. Nobody cared to heed. After suffering, they just had to swallow their hurting and go on silent." Li Gui Hua, Grandma Cao's daughter, adds that many Chinese felt lucky to take survived the war at all. How were the Grandma'due south lives affected by returning to communities where everyone was living with the traumas of war? Why is information technology important for people to exist able to tell their stories and to know that other people are hearing them?

Constructions of Womanhood and Gender Roles

How do you business relationship for the reaction of Japanese protestors who telephone call the Grandmas vile names and accuse them of being prostitutes? What do the particular slurs and taunts they utilise propose nigh their motives?

Grandma Adela says she never told her father "Considering at that time, it was really a great... It'south really a shame as a woman, to exist raped." And she never told her husband because she feared he would get out her. What does a society have to believe well-nigh the nature and value of women in society to blame victims for rape?

The co-leader of Nihon'due south Restoration Party, Toru Hashimoto, says that Japan should not apologize for its wartime use of sex slaves because "sex slavery was necessary." Others echo his belief. What versions of manhood, womanhood, and state of war are validated by the notion that sex slavery was "necessary"? How do those behavior almost gender roles compare with your beliefs virtually what it ways to exist a man or a woman?

Grandma Cao explains, "I can't read. I never went to school. Only boys were allowed to go, not girls. If they allow u.s. become to school, then I would be able to read." How did existing sexism contribute to the situation they faced trying to re-create normal lives?

The Importance of Memory

Scholars have observed that those who tell the stories command the culture. Both Zhang Shaun Bing and Japanese students betoken that the stories of the Grandmas are absent-minded from history books. Why have the stories of military sexual slavery been silenced? Why would it be important for people in Japan and in the Grandmas' dwelling countries to hear their stories? Who controls the stories that are included or excluded from your history books? How have those decisions shaped your culture or your agreement of who you are?

Chinese villagers say that they "don't similar to talk about these things. Why would nosotros want to? Who would feel happy if their daughter was raped by Japanese soldiers?" How does such silence square with the notion that those who are ignorant of history are doomed to echo it?

The filmmaker asks Li Gui Hua if she volition share her mother'southward story with her girl. She answers, "I will, after she graduates. After she graduates, when she'south older. She'south too young now. It might affect her emotionally." If you were in her shoes, what practice y'all think you would do? How would you starting time the conversation?

At the finish of the pic, young women speak to the Grandmas. If y'all were amid them, what would y'all say? What would your message exist?

Lessons well-nigh War

Does the fact that the comfort stations were created during wartime brand a difference? What sorts of traumas did soldiers experience that might have contributed to their willingness to treat the girls in the comfort stations as objects?

Grandma Gil says, "We are travelling all over to create a peaceful world. Non merely for Korea and Japan, but for the world." How do their stories help bring peace?

Because Grandma Gil was kidnapped from Democratic people's republic of korea, and the conflict betwixt North and South never officially ended, she was never able to return home or contact her family. How did the separation exacerbate the trauma?

What did you acquire from the pic that yous could apply to sexual violence in conflict situations today?

The Meaning of Redress

Given that the Grandmas' experiences were atrocities common to war, practise you lot believe that Japan owes them reparations? Why or why not?

Why do you lot think Japan has resisted accepting legal responsibility for the armed services sexual slavery system? What'south at stake?

How does the linguistic communication used to draw the Grandmas – "comfort women" rather than, say, underage sexual slaves, prisoners of war, or victims of torture – influence the contend over apologies and reparations?

Healing

Grandma Gil recognizes that her wounds will not go away even with an amends, only even though "the scars will remain, my heart can heal. I am waiting for that 24-hour interval." Why is an apology such a vital office of the healing procedure? Why would the Grandmas and their supporters put in decades of effort demanding one?

Meehyang Yoon asks Grandma Gil, "Why practise you e'er hold it in? Sometimes you've got to let your tears come up out. That's healing. Information technology'll panel your center. Why do you concur your tears in?" In your experience, what function does crying play in the healing process? Why might Grandma Gil hold back her tears, especially in public?

Grandma Adela meets with a group of other "Grandmas." What difference does information technology make to have peers who empathise your feel, especially for those who have kept their past a secret?

After Grandma Adela "removes this thorn that'due south been stuck in my heart" by telling her son near her past, she says, "My spirits have been lifted. I experience ten kilos lighter." How does speaking about ane's feel of atrocity help the healing process?

At many of their protests and gatherings, the Grandmas and their supporters sing. Are there circumstances when you sing with others? What songs inspire you? Comfort y'all?

Adela questions the idea of revealing her story: "It'due south very shameful to be a victim. That'southward the attitude in Roxas, in the Philippines. If you expose yourself, then what for? To be a hero? When in fact you are a club outcast?" The filmmaker answers, "But you know that... because yous're willing to tell people, that y'all allow people to feel strong. Yous practice that for other people." How do the Grandmas who have publicly shared their stories make others stronger? Did hearing their stories make yous feel stronger?

Additional media literacy questions are bachelor at: www.pbs.org/pov/educators/media-literacy.php

Get involved in electric current actions to end sexual violence in conflicts. To start, you might expect at the UN Activity Against Sexual Violence in Conflict (http://stoprapenow.org/) or consider participating in observances of International Solar day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict (united nations.org/en/events/elimination-of-sexual-violence-in-disharmonize/index.shtml).

In the pic, we see one of several statues that accept been placed outside Japanese embassies or other meaningful locations (statue of the sitting girl with the empty chair abreast her). Create or commission your own public art honoring those who have been victims of or fought against sexual or gender-based violence. Discuss where the art should be exhibited and why. Apply the art installation to spark conversations about the issue of militarized sexual violence.

Track the current status of Japanese apologies and reparations to the survivors in People's republic of china and the Philippines, as well equally South korea and Due north Korea. Learn more almost advocacy efforts to encourage officials to actively engage in the healing process and compensate survivors.

Writer

Faith Rogow, InsightersEducation.com

Guide Producers, POV

Alice Quinlan

Managing director, Community Engagement and Instruction, POV

Ione Barrows

Senior Associate, Community Engagement and Didactics, POV

Rachel Friedland

Community Partnerships Assistant, POV

Cheers to those who reviewed this guide:

Tiffany Hsiung

Filmmaker, The Apology

Japan-U.S. Feminist Network for Decolonization (FeND)

Dr. Alexis Dudden

Professor of History, Academy of Connecticut

Dr. Jessie Kindig

Author, "'War for Peace': Race, Empire, and the Korean War"

Founding member, Histories of Violence Collective

Editor, Verso Books

Elizabeth W. Son, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Department of Theatre

Interim Director, Interdisciplinary PhD in Theatre and Drama Programme

Northwestern University

Author, Embodied Reckonings: "Comfort Women," Performance, and Transpacific Redress

Fran Sterling

Blueshift Education

This resource was created, in office, with the generous support of the Open Gild Foundation and The Middle For Asian American Media.

gonzalezalownd.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.amdoc.org/engage/resources/apology-discussion-guide/general-discussion-questions/

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