Talk:San Francisco Comfort Women Memorial

Proposed Wikipedia Article Outline

Proposed Section 1: Appearance In this section, I am planning to describe the appearance of the statue “Comfort Women” Column of Strength in general. The content is going to include the statue’s imagery design, materials being used, and symbolic meanings. I will also briefly elaborate on the experiences of Kim Hak-Sun, in which the bronze figure of the statue represents.

Proposed Section 2: Background I am thinking about providing some necessary, essential background information about comfort women in the section, as it helps readers understand the context of the memorial and the statue. I will probably include some quotations from the “Comfort Women” Justice Coalition. (the patron of the statue) to avoid offering political viewpoints.

Proposed Section 3: Development In addition to the original description of how the coalition pushed for the statue and raised money for it, I am going to mention the original intended design, as well as the process of finding and engaging with local girls as models. I am going to use the following two sources primarily.

Link: https://catalog.library.vanderbilt.edu/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=proquest1973008150&context=PC&vid=01VAN_INST:vanui&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&tab=Everything&lang=en Citation: Anderson, Mark. Steven Whyte. Seaside, Calif.: Monterey County Coast Weekly, 2017. Web.

Link: https://catalog.library.vanderbilt.edu/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=proquest1802284655&context=U&vid=01VAN_INST:vanui&lang=en Citation: Comfort Women Memorial Likely to Be Erected in San Francisco Next Spring. Tokyo: JIJI Press America, Ltd., 2016. Web.

Proposed Section 4: Controversy In this section, I will focus on how this statue raises a political controversy and thus threatens to the sisterhood between Osaka and San Francisco. I am going to rely on the article named “The Comfort Women Controversy: Not Over Yet” and other news articles to illustrate my point.

Link: https://catalog.library.vanderbilt.edu/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=proquest1847390089&context=U&vid=01VAN_INST:vanui&lang=en Citation: Ward, Thomas, and Lay, William. The Comfort Women Controversy: Not Over Yet. Vol. 33. Dordrecht: Springer Nature B.V., 2016. Web. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Monumentsandyhchen (talk • contribs) 21:46, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Potential sources for consideration

The first new source I found is an interview with Steven Whyte, the sculptor of "Comfort Women" Column of Strength. In this interview, he addresses how the Column of Strength memorial piece differs from his previous work, and reflects on the process of finding local models and engaging with girls who have heard about the comfort woman from their grandparents.

Link: https://catalog.library.vanderbilt.edu/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=proquest1973008150&context=PC&vid=01VAN_INST:vanui&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&tab=Everything&lang=en

Citation: Anderson, Mark. Steven Whyte. Seaside, Calif.: Monterey County Coast Weekly, 2017. Web.

The second source I think might be helpful is a news article titled "Comfort Women Memorial Likely to Be Erected in San Francisco Next Spring," in which it shows the original plan of setting up a statue of a single girl symbolizing comfort women, and how it differs from the current design of the statue.

Link: https://catalog.library.vanderbilt.edu/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=proquest1802284655&context=U&vid=01VAN_INST:vanui&lang=en

Citation: Comfort Women Memorial Likely to Be Erected in San Francisco Next Spring. Tokyo: JIJI Press America, Ltd., 2016. Web.

The third source is a peer-reviewed article titled "The Comfort Women Controversy: Not Over Yet," which in general concerns the controversial issue that the buildup of comfort women memorials brings to the politics. As the San Francisco Comfort Women Memorial leads to the end of sisterhood between Osaka and San Francisco, I think some of the content of this article might be worthy of bringing up.

Link: https://catalog.library.vanderbilt.edu/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=proquest1847390089&context=U&vid=01VAN_INST:vanui&lang=en

Citation: Ward, Thomas, and Lay, William. The Comfort Women Controversy: Not Over Yet. Vol. 33. Dordrecht: Springer Nature B.V., 2016. Web. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Monumentsandyhchen (talk • contribs) 23:15, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Possible NPOV or Conflict of Interest issues?

I noticed this article on the AfC Draft article Noticeboard, and it seems fine. It was only after accepting the draft did I notice the original editor of the article. I would argue that it isn't Wikipedia's job to get involved in ethnic conflicts about history (even though the issue of Comfort women has been established by multiple reliable sources). The article is well-written, but the fact that it was written specifically by a Korean-American University club makes me wary of the possible NPOV issues that may exist. I think I need another pair of eyes on this article. @TonyBallioni:, @MatthewVanitas: @The Anome: Your thoughts? Bkissin (talk) 17:52, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

@Bkissin: watchlisted, and I can chop on it tonight unless someone else gets to it first. I think it can be NPOVed fairly easily. MatthewVanitas (talk) 19:00, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Watchlisted. Let's see what happens. I look forward to seeing MatthewVanitas' edits. -- The Anome (talk) 20:26, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Hello @Ka-cw2018:, I've done some reworking of your article, and removed some content down below that was getting away from the tight focus on the monument itself. Please note you have several passages tagged with "who", "by whom", "which" etc and it would be very helpful if you can double-check your sources and make sure those vague phrases are clearer.

If you are involved with the memorial or the organizations supporting it, we request that you state your WP:Conflict of interest on your userpage. It's kosher to do some edits if you declare a COI, but if you state you have no COI, and your editing conflicts with that, folks get displeased. So it'd help if you can let us know one way or the other.

Overall, an interesting article, thanks for your contribution! MatthewVanitas (talk) 21:26, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

This controversy stems from a US city government authorizing this statue. Any private organization is free to put up any statue it wants on its own private land. But the City of San Francisco government is supposed to represent all San Franciscans, not just those of Korean and Chinese descent. What business does the City of San Francisco have sticking its nose into a dispute between Asian nations? How would Americans living in Japan feel if the city government of Osaka decided to put up a memorial statue to the victims of the My Lai Massacre or the Massacre at Wounded Knee, which have nothing to do with Japan? The Controversy section of this article is highly biased against Japan. --Westwind273 (talk) 15:26, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Removing some content for now

This whole section appears to be somewhat tangential to discussion of the memorial itself, and rather goes on a tangent discussing the comfort women issues, and in somewhat POV terms. I'm pasting it here in case some of it needs to be cleaned up and restored. MatthewVanitas (talk) 21:16, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

The San Francisco comfort women memorial represents the approximate 200,000 sexually enslaved women and girls from thirteen Asian Pacific countries, many of whom were led through force and coercion by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces. This occurred between 1931-1945. In the 1990’s, a movement began to honor comfort women who began publicly sharing their experiences. The San Francisco comfort women memorial was placed to serve as an international beacon of hope. It was also placed to bring awareness to the community regarding the issue of human trafficking of women and girls. Due to the high number of Asian Americans in San Francisco, many are either related to comfort women survivors or know of someone who is a survivor. The statue serves as a physical memorial of the experiences and trauma faced by comfort women. Approximately 50 comfort women memorials are located around the world. To survivors and their families, memorials are seen as more sincere than apologies alone. They claim that apologies were only produced as a way to ease tensions between countries, not to acknowledge and give justice to its victims. The apologies are seen as inadequate and insincere for the comfort women survivors, their family members, and their descendants.

Again, this discusses the issues, not the sculpture; we need to maintain tight focus and let wikilinks like comfort women give the vast majority of the context, rather than re-discuss it here.

The Japanese government has issued several apologies since comfort women survivors began speaking out in the 1990’s, and in 2015, pledged approximately $8.7 million to go towards reparations. The 2015 agreement between the governments of South Korea and Japan also stated that both governments would refrain from criticizing or accusing the other in the international community over the topic concerning comfort women. Under the agreement, Japan took responsibility over the issue of comfort women, but South Korean activists claimed the apology was vague and did not explicitly state that Japan took "legal" responsibility over the enslavement of comfort women. An additional point was raised by activists stated that Japan and South Korea made the agreement because of pressure from the U.S. government to form a united front for national security reasons.

Can't find the statue in the square

I've been zooming into St. Mary's Square on Google Street Maps. There is a statue in the park, and it looks like there are some people in front of it with a poster in Japanese as if it was the subject of a political demonstration, but it doesn't look to me to be exactly like the one in the picture on Commons. Google Maps has a pin for it, but the aerial photography shows just a building site. (However, the imagery for both the Street View and aerial photos might well be out of date.) The NYT story describes it as "overlooking a small park downtown": perhaps it was, or is, not in the park, but near it?

Bonus question: if the statue in the park itself with Japanese posters near it is not this statue, what is it? -- The Anome (talk) 22:24, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

References