Hannah Kim
Hannah Kim studies U.S. and Korean relations in the early to mid-twentieth century. Her book, Ties that Bind: People and Perception in U.S. and Korean Transnational Relations, 1905-1965 (University of Nebraska Press, 2025) examines how a transnational community of people such as missionaries, mission board members, academics, journalists, expatriates, adoptive parents, and government officials helped shape American perceptions of Korea and Koreans. Her article, “Death in Philadelphia, 1958: The Murder of In-Ho Oh and the Politics of Cold War America," won the Urban History Association's Arnold Hirsch Award for the best article in a scholarly journal and was a finalist for the Pacific Coast Branch of the AHA's Robert W. Cherney Article Award.
Professor Kim is also the co-coordinator of the History/Social Studies Education program at UD. She along with other faculty study and suggest strategies to recruit and retain students from underrepresented groups in teacher education. Diversity in education remains a strong interest in Professor Kim's work in teacher preparation and with local K-12 schools.
University of Delaware
Session
Ties That Bind narrates five stories of how a transnational community helped shape American perceptions and understandings of Korea and Koreans, from a time when only a small number of Americans knew anything about Korea to a time when most Americans were aware of Korea's geopolitical significance. Three of the moments took place when Korea was a colony of Japan: the so-called Conspiracy Case in 1911, the independence movement of 1919, and the efforts to recognize Korean independence during World War II. The other two moments transpired in the context of the Cold War, when Korean orphans and Korean exchange students came to the United States in the 1950s.
In these five stories, the interplay of people, perceptions, and official and unofficial policy can be seen in the work of people who tried to influence U.S. and Korean relations by binding Americans and Koreans through shared values and experiences. They did so by portraying Koreans as Christian converts, as supporters of democracy and democratic ideals, and as people embracing Western or American cultural norms. The actors in this book did not always succeed in their goals, but through their endeavors, they facilitated policy discussions, forged ties between the United States and Korea, and began to break down cultural barriers between Koreans and Americans.