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appendix 1 A Note on Research This study is based primarily on oral history interviews and fieldwork conducted from the fall of 1993 through the end of 1996 in the Delaware Valley and surrounding regions, including the Philadelphia metropolitan area and eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York City. Research also included two 1997 trips to South Korea and visits to military camptowns in the Seoul area, including Itaewon, Uijongbu, and Tongduchon . Written sources include newspaper articles, community organization reports, U.S. military documents, and the personal papers of several military brides. But because written sources are scarce, my primary sources came from fieldwork. This includes formal, audiotaped oral history interviews with sixteen military brides who arrived in a forty-year time span from 1951 to 1991, as well as participant observation with approximately one hundred fifty military brides and their families. These people were found through personal contacts throughout the local Korean immigrant community who introduced me to military brides whom they knew. Although the research was conducted in one geographical area, this is not a geographically bound community study. The study’s focus is the history of Korean military brides and their life experiences, and much of the history and life experiences that the women discuss took place in locales throughout the United States, in Korea, and at U.S. military bases around the world. Only in chapters 5 and 6 does the Delaware Valley location assume specific importance, for in these chapters much of the discussion centers around the women’s relationship with the mainstream Korean community in the area and with the development of their own regional associations. Nevertheless, these chapters also draw on the history of Korean military brides in other regions of the United States. Only two women, to my knowledge, expressed explicit opposition to this study. The opposition of one woman at a regional association effectively prevented me from getting to know how the members of that association interacted at their monthly meetings, for like most Korean military bride associations, it operated by consensus. She felt that allowing a researcher at the association’s members-only functions would make the 231 functions stressful rather than relaxing and enjoyable. As this was a reasonable belief, I made no attempts to ask for a reconsideration or to plead my case. Other members of this association, however, spoke with me quite freely about both their own lives and the history of the association, and I attended functions that were open to nonmembers. The opposition of the second woman arose from a reluctance to see the lives of military brides exposed to public view. She invited me to her home for dinner after church one Sunday. I thought she was either curious about or interested in participating in the research. She thought that I was a newly arrived military bride who needed befriending. Although the minister had announced my presence and the reason for it several weeks before, and I had been busily introducing myself to church members since then, she was unaware of my identity for she spent much of her time working in the church kitchen or the nursery. (This reminded me that the women had more interesting and important things to do amongst themselves than talk about the stranger who wanted to get to know them.) When I started to say, “As you know, I’m studying the lives of Korean women who married American soldiers and . . .” she was shocked and frankly expressed her sense of betrayal. She questioned the value of my research and noted that Koreans were quick to view military brides negatively. We came to an agreement: I would not ask for her help in the research, and she would not hinder my work. Instead, we would just be fellow church members. We were able to come to this agreement because, after a long conversation about my perspectives and goals for the research, she decided that the study would not be exploitative or sensationalized. Henceforth, we developed a friendly relationship and I treated her with the respect due an elder sister within Korean culture. It was more common for husbands to object to their wives’ contact with me. The reaction of Mrs. Ferriman’s husband was typical of many other husbands, albeit more overtly so. He interrupted our taped interview by admonishing his wife to tell me the truth, and when I offered to interview him, he declined, saying that I wouldn’t understand because I was not married. Another woman...

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