Thanks to a grant from King County 4Culture, we were able to convert several oral histories from magnetic tapes to a digital format.  These tapes were record of the period from 1981 to 1986 — well past their shelf life.  4Culuture’s support also made possible the transcription of some of these tapes.  We are posting four of them.  These are the stories of a second generation son who goes from the family farm to Yale and Columbia; a third generation nursing PhD,  the son of a career Korean American US Army solider, and twin sisters that enter the University of Washin ..read more

Covid Stories is a collection of oral histories documenting Korean American experiences and observations in our community during this once in a lifetime (hopefully) historic event.  Former KAHS Board Member Erica Chung started this project in 2020 during the Covid-19 Pandemic as a way to “have our (Korean American) voices be represented” and preserved in history. Ten, fifty, and hundred years from now when historians, researchers, and interested persons search historical records, we will have our authentic Korean American voices. We currently have 16 oral histories available on our YouTub ..read more

We are excited to announce the completion of our new website, thanks to a grant from 4Culture!  Our new site includes cloud hosting of our collections, which we are working to digitize and catalog.  Thanks to continued support from 4Culture, KAHS will, in the near future, be able to provide community access to our collection online. Like so many other non-profit organizations, the Covid-19 pandemic has negatively impacted this project.  Our physical collection is stored at The Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience, which is now closed.  Therefore, trans ..read more

We are excited to announce the completion of our new website, thanks to a grant from 4Culture!  Our new site includes cloud hosting of our collections, which we are working to digitize and catalog.  Thanks to continued support from 4Culture, KAHS will, in the near future, be able to provide community access to our collection online. Like so many other non-profit organizations, the Covid-19 pandemic has negatively impacted this project.  Our physical collection is stored at The Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience, which is now closed.  Therefore, trans ..read more

On Sunday, September 27, 2020, KAHS in collaboration with Town Hall Seattle and University of Washington Press hosted a virtual town hall featuring Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton, translators of “One Left” a Novel by Kim Soom. During the virtual town hall, the Fultons shared with the audience why they decided to translate the novel and the many challenges they encountered in publishing the book, followed by a lively question and answer session. “One Left” is a historical novel about Korean girls who were forced into sexual servitude for the Japanese soldiers during the Pacific War. Kim Soom, based ..read more

A Livestream Event Presented by Town Hall Seattle and Korean American Historical Society Sunday, September 27, 2020, 6:00PM During the Pacific War, more than 200,000 Korean girls were forced into sexual servitude for Japanese soldiers. Barely 10 percent survived to return to Korea, where they lived as social outcasts. Since then, self-declared comfort women have come forward only to have their testimonies and calls for compensation largely denied by the Japanese government. In One Left, author Kim Soom tells a fictionalized story of a comfort woman, kidnapped at the age of thirteen to live a l ..read more

In September, as a part of the Korean American Historical Society’s Collective Memory Project, we collected documents, photos and artifacts from members of the Korean community. Each historical item reveals the many facets of Korean immigration to America. To follow up on that phase of the project, KAHS will host a community forum to discuss the significance of this material and place them in the larger context of the Korean American experience. University of Washington History Professor Moon-Ho Jung will lead the discussion. This event is free and will be held December 8, at 2:30pm to 4:30p ..read more

Seattle, Washington: KAHS is proud to announce that it will host two free events whereby residents can bring documents and photographs to be digitized. The digitization events will take place on September 8, 2018 from 10am to 4pm at the Federal Way Korean American Association (1500 S 336th St, Federal Way, WA 98003-6312) September 29, 2018 from 10am to 4pm at the United Presbyterian Church of Seattle (8506 238th St SW, Edmonds, WA 98026-8939) Participants will receive protective storage sleeves to ensure the longevity of their materials, as well as a USB drive of the images for fre ..read more

Jogakbo to promote the collection of family documents to preserve Korean American history Seattle, Washington: KAHS is proud to introduce “Jogakbo”, created by local author-illustrator Julie Kim based on images from the KAHS collection. Julie’s artistic talent and these images produced the perfect piece to promote The Collective Memory of the Korean Community project. The goal of this project is to create a digital archive of documents like those in this artwork to tell the story of Koreans in America. The digitization events will take place on September 8, 2018 from 10am ..read more