Author unveils new book
Assanatou Sow
Issue date: 11/16/09 Section: News
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Influenced by her father and husband, she decided to write a book. On Thursday, Nov. 12 she presented the result, "We Married Koreans," about American women with Korean husbands, to students and faculty in the Library Lounge at the Leslie F. Malpass Library.
The book, a product of five years' work, features personal contributions from 12 women.
In 2000, Hurh and her husband attended a theology conference at which he spoke and met several similar couples while there.
"My husband and I and two couples were talking together when I suddenly realized that of us three of the women were white Americans and the three of the men were Koreans," Hurh said. "We began to compare our stories about when we met and when we married. And it turned out, we were all married the same year, 1963, the same month, in June."
The men exchanged business cards and Hurh said to her husband, "Be sure to save those cards because I may want to contact the women." At the time she was not yet planning to write a book.
However, after she retired from the Western Illinois University broadcasting department in 2002, she started the book project after being influenced by her father and her husband. Following his retirement in social studies, her father had put together a homemade book,"Of What We Potters Are," featuring the letters of his ancestors, immigrants who came from England in the 1940s. Hurh's husband was planning to write a memoir on his years in the army and his service in the Korean War.
"I looked at my life and said what I can write about? The students and the funny answers they put on their exams, or what?" Hurh said. "Then I was reading about the national history oral project out of the Library of Congress, which is now called The Record. They go around country recording anybody who wants to be recorded, but they ask for a special event or a unique story of their lives."
Because of this project's influence, she thought maybe she could collect stories from others as she did not feel her story was enough. She approached her husband about the idea before she set out to write, and with his support decided to proceed.
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