Three Stories about a Statue

In 2013, Glendale, California, installed "Peace Monument," a bronze statue representing "comfort women"—girls and women coerced to work in brothels serving Japanese soldiers during World War II. Japanese groups deny such women were coerced and sued to remove the statue. The conflict over the monument attests to California's deepening ties across a Pacific region haunted by conflicting nationalist memories of World War II. But the monument speaks to other themes as well, including the increasing cultural impact of Korean-American groups on the Southern California landscape, and the recent diversification of subjects honored in monuments both locally and nationally. The paper outlines these three stories about the statue for their interest to West Coast geographers. The larger point is that, as California continues to broaden and deepen its relationships with other Pacific peoples, the state's landscapes will become increasingly multi-layered with stories about these relationships within California's own unfolding modernity.