Japanese Literacy Education and Self-expression of Zainichi Korean Women after the War ：Focusing on the Japanese Writings of Zainichi Korean Women

This article analyzes the writing Zainichi Korean women produced as an attempt to visualize the memories of these women who lived the postwar. Specifically, the target of this analysis are the writings of women who studied Japanese at night-time junior high school.Most of these women spent their childhood during the colonial period in Japan and have been excluded from educational opportunities due to conservative ideas and poverty caused by the colonial government. They were illiterate and spent their days desperately trying to get their daily bread, so the act of writing was a difficult matter for them. It was only when they were freed from their housework and labor that they had the chance to begin learning letters. By learning letters, they acquired words to speak about themselves, establishing their relationship with the world, therefore gaining their independence and sensibility that they had been deprived of. In contemporary times, when memories of discrimination and war are becoming increasingly weathered, the writings these women left behind will be an important clue to understand those memories.