여기에 쓰인 글을 읽다가 중간에 읽고 싶은 마음이 없어진 사람입니다. 하와이 주정부 교육청에서 이런 반응이 나왔는데 한국 사람들이 너무 관대하다고 보아야하는 겁니까? 아니면 속이 없다고 봐야합니까? 미국에서 태어난 한국 아이들조차 잘모르는 역사 지식에 이런 책을 읽혀도 문제가 된다고 생각합니다. 적어도 일본이 어떻게 했는지 잘 아는 정도의 아이들이라면 별문제가 없겠죠. 그런데 미국의 초등학생의 눈으로 바라본다고 생각하면 이책이 분명히 문제가 있다고 생각합니다.

그리고 미국에 이런 책이 10년이 넘게 있었다고 저도 의아했는데 서서히 이해가 갑니다. 첫번째 문제는 아무래도 먹고 사는 것이 더 컸기에 부모님들이 그냥 넘어갈 수밖에 없었고, 두번째는 너무도 중요한 언어 문제였으리라 생각합니다. 알면서도 영어로 항의 할 수 없었던 상황이었겠죠. 하지만 지금은 영어를 잘 하는 부모님들이 많아서 이제 이런 일을 할 수 있다고 생각합니다.

지금도 늦지 않았다고 생각합니다.

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Vol. 12, Issue 34 – Saturday, February 3, 2007
State asks schools to weigh in on disputed book
Critics say the story wrongly portrays Japanese as war victims of Korea
By Alexandre Da Silva
adasilva@starbulletin.com
The state Department of Education wants to know whether a book available to many public schools is appropriate for students after being warned by the Korean Consulate that it contains historical distortions about the end of World War II.

COURTESY IMAGE
“So Far from the Bamboo Grove” by Yoko Kawashima Watkins.

The autobiographical book, “So Far from the Bamboo Grove,” was written by Yoko Kawashima Watkins and depicts her life as an 11-year-old Japanese girl fleeing from a city in north Korea to Japan in 1945. During her escape, Watkins, now a Massachusetts resident, talks about bombings by U.S. planes and murders, rapes and other atrocities committed against the Japanese by Koreans.

But critics say the book, which has been available since 1986 and recently has been dropped by several American schools, does not match historical accounts about the Japanese colonial occupation of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945.

Schools Superintendent Pat Hamamoto sent an e-mail to school officials Wednesday asking for general feedback about the 183-page book.

Hamamoto also wanted to know if teachers using the book were following a department policy that instructs them to present all sides of a disputed issue.

In a quick check, the department found 150 copies of the book among 140 schools, said Greg Knudsen, spokesman for the department. The book also is listed among thousands of titles available in an Accelerated Reader Program, a service to which several public schools subscribe, he said.

However, Knudsen does not expect the book, which is listed as a fictionalized autobiography at school libraries, to be pulled from shelves.

“I don’t believe that we would be wanting to do anything that extreme,” he said, adding that schools were told to send comments about the book by Monday. “It would be appropriate in an academic setting to discuss it with a fuller perspective on the issues that are raised.”

But Kipapa Elementary School, which recently got 50 copies of the book ordered by a teacher, will keep them away from students until they hear from the department, said Principal Bruce Naguwa.

“We will wait for the officials to go either way on it. That’s why, for myself right now, I’m telling the library to just keep them in the back,” Naguwa said. “We don’t want to be caught in no controversy.”

Customer reviews about the book on the online store Amazon.com call it “propaganda material” and “far from the truth.” Although Watkins has defended the accuracy of her book, it has been removed from schools in New York, Massachusetts, Texas and Rhode Island, according to South Korean News Agency Yonhap.

Dong Yern Kim, deputy consul general with the Korean Consulate in Hawaii, said he recently visited Hamamoto to tell her the book “misguided the American students.”

Kim said that among scores of false statements in the book is an alleged air raid by B-29 bombers in July 1945, an attack Kim claims never happened. Kim also questioned a passage in which Watkins and her mother wore uniforms from the North Korea Communist Army, a group that he said was not formed until 1948.

“It portrays that Japanese are victims and the Koreans as the villains,” he said, “and we have concerns about it.”

Article URL: http://starbulletin.com/2007/02/03/news/story04.html
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