Perspectives on Contemporary Korea | Transpacific Lives in an Americal Century: Ilhan New as Method

The Nam Center for Korean Studies at the University of Michigan is proud to host an international conference focused on the life and work of Ilhan New as part of the Center’s Perspectives on Contemporary Korea series. A national hero in Korea and the University of Michigan’s most famous Korean alumnus, Ilhan New’s remarkable biography is well known. Born in Pyongyang, New came to the United States at a young age and received primary and secondary education in the Midwest. In Hastings, Nebraska, New attended the Korean youth military school established by Park Yong-man in 1909. From Hastings, New moved to Detroit and then to nearby Ann Arbor to pursue a degree in business and commerce at the University of Michigan. While studying at Michigan New met his future spouse and trailblazing partner Mary Woo. In 1922, New and a friend from the University of Michigan named Wally Smith launched the brand La Choy and turned a seemingly impossible chance encounter into one of the most spectacular examples of the American Dream at Smith’s grocery in Detroit. New returned to his homeland in 1926 at the age of 31 and established a successful pharmaceutical company named Yuhan yanghaeng. In the final years of the Pacific War, New once again demonstrated his ability to shape new forms of Asian, American, and Asian American agency as a consultant for the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS). After liberation in 1945, New made significant contributions to the rebuilding of South Korea through education, public health, and philanthropy.

Far from taking New as an extraordinary individual who led an exceptional life, the conference will approach New’s biography as a point of entry that opens onto several important avenues for thinking about Korean, American, and Asian American histories of the modern era, as well as a method for interrogating these histories’ complex imbrications with one another. Particular attention will be paid to the lesser known forces that shaped New’s trajectory and the transformative impact of New’s life on these and other historical forces. Using Ilhan New not as case study but as method, this conference will examine, among other things, the global footprint of Midwestern values and religiosity, the ethnicity of global industry and global nature of ethnic industry, fighting for a nation that is both singular and plural, and Korea’s diasporic century.

If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact us at ncks.info@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.