Author defends memoir on Korea, apologizes for furor

SHERBORN --Yoko Kawashima Watkins, a soft-spoken 73-year-old author from Cape Cod, stood yesterday before an angry audience that included seven South Korean media outlets to defend a controversial memoir that has stirred debate from the Boston suburbs to Hawaii.

But in defending her book, "So Far from the Bamboo Grove," she also stirred up decades-old resentments over the Japanese occupation of Korea, which ended in 1945.

"Yoko has become a symbol for the problems between Japan and Korea," said John D'Auria, principal at Wellesley Middle School, where Watkins's book has been taught for 13 years.

Her award-winning memoir, taught in many middle schools in Greater Boston and around the United States, is about her family's harrowing escape from Korea in 1945, when Japanese families like hers were ousted after 35 years of occupation. But Korean-Americans and at least three South Korean consulates in the United States contend that her book, told through the eyes of an 11-year-old, distorts history.

Korean-American parents contend that she paints the Koreans as rapists and murderers without discussing atrocities committed by the Japanese during the occupation, including forcing young women into sexual slavery and torturing Koreans to death.

Yesterday, dressed simply in black sneakers, brown pants, and a blouse buttoned up to her neck, Watkins opened a press conference with an apology before about 60 people at The Peace Abbey.

"I am extremely sorry for causing the commotion over 'So Far from the Bamboo Grove,' " she said. Watkins, who describes herself as a peace activist, told the audience that she is willing to call her publisher to see whether a new foreword with more history can be written for the next edition.

Last fall, a group of about a dozen parents asked Dover-Sherborn Middle School to remove the book from the sixth- grade curriculum. In January, the School Committee outraged some parents by deciding to keep the book but to add more historical context to the lesson, which is part of an English language arts unit on survival.

The South Korean Consulate in Newton asked the Massachusetts Department of Education in January to reconsider whether the book is appropriate for middle schoolers. The letter said the book depicts Koreans as "evil predators" and creates a hostile environment for Korean-American students.

Similar letters were sent from South Korean consulates in Honolulu and San Francisco to their own state education departments.

The Massachusetts Department of Education does not weigh in on such matters, leaving them instead to local school districts, according to spokesman Nate Mackinnon. Watkins is one of 60 authors recommended by the state for grades 5 through 8.

On Feb. 3, the North Korean government issued a statement criticizing the United States for allowing the book to be taught.

On her visits to middle schools, Watkins said, she always apologizes for the suffering caused by the Japanese government.

"There's no author that has . . . made more of a positive change in children than this woman," said D'Auria.

Agnes Ahn of Dover , one of the Korean-American parents who sought to have the book removed from sixth- grade classrooms, referred to D'Auria's remarks as propaganda. While Yoko and her family struggled for a short time, said Ahn, Koreans suffered for 35 years under Japanese occupation.

"How can you say her story is more important," she asked.

A chorus of teachers answered, "We're not."

Lisa Kocian can be reached at lkocian@globe.com.