2022년 4월 5일 화요일

Susan Ahn Cuddy - Wikipedia

Susan Ahn Cuddy - Wikipedia

Susan Ahn Cuddy

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Susan Ahn Cuddy
Ahn Siblings World War II.jpg
Ahn siblings, with Ralph on the left, Philip in the center, and Susan on the right
Birth nameSusan Ahn
BornJanuary 16, 1915
Los Angeles, California, U.S.[1]
DiedJune 24, 2015 (aged 100)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Alma materSan Diego State University
Spouse(s)Frank Cuddy
Relations
Other workLibrary of Congress[2]
National Security Agency[2]
Military career
Allegiance United States
Service/branchFlag of the United States Navy.svg United States Navy
Years of service1942–1946
RankUS-O3 insignia.svg Lieutenant[2]
UnitLink Training, Gunnery, Intelligence
Battles/warsWorld War II

Susan Ahn Cuddy (Korean: 안수산, Hanja:安繡山; January 16, 1915 – June 24, 2015) was the first female gunnery officer in the United States Navy. She was the eldest daughter of Korean independence activist Ahn Chang-ho and Helen Ahn, the first married Korean couple to immigrate to the United States in 1902. She joined the Navy in 1942 and served until 1946, reaching the rank of lieutenant. She was the first Asian-American woman to join the U.S. Navy.[3]

Early life and education[edit]

Susan Ahn was born in 1915 in Los Angeles, California, as the eldest daughter of Dosan Ahn Changho and Helen Lee. In 1902, her parents were the first Korean married couple to immigrate to the United States. The couple tirelessly worked to liberate their mother country from Japanese colonization; Ahn Chang Ho would eventually give his life to that movement in 1938, after succumbing to injuries from his constant imprisonment and torture by the Japanese.[4]

As the family established themselves, the Ahn house[5] became a haven for many Korean immigrants. The Young Korean Academy (Hung Sa Dan)[6] made its headquarters at the Ahns' residence as a resource center for many Korean immigrants. Many exiled Korean patriots, including Soh Jaipil, the first Korean American citizen, visited the Ahns while they lived at 106 North Figueroa during the Japanese occupation of Korea. The third child of five, and eldest daughter, Susan always said that her parents' sacrifice and dedication to the Korean independence cause played a defining role in her own identity and values.[4]

During her youth, Ahn Cuddy worked for many of Dosan's independence organizations in Los Angeles. She attended Beaudry Elementary, Central Junior High and Belmont High School. She participated in sports such as baseball and field hockey. When she was at Los Angeles City College she was in charge of women's baseball, as well as playing second base. She played for the Bing Crosby Croonerettes softball team. She had to stop playing to keep her amateur status to play college baseball.

Ahn Cuddy graduated from San Diego State University in 1940 and joined the United States Navy in 1942, where she would serve until 1946.[7]

Career[edit]

After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Ahn Cuddy enlisted in the United States Armed Forces and enrolled in the U.S. Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She became the first Asian American woman in the Navy. This was at a time when anti-Asian sentiment in the country was high and women were still battling over sexism in the military. She told biographer John Cha, who wrote Willow Tree Shade: The Susan Ahn Cuddy Story (2002), "A lot of people thought that women didn't belong in the service. That made us try harder."[8]

She felt joining the Navy was a way to help free Korea from the harsh Japanese colonial era rule and was eager to join the Navy to fight the Japanese. She worked her way up in the Navy, becoming an instructor on Link Trainer flight simulators in 1943, teaching aviators how to maneuver in a simulator cockpit. Later she became the first female aerial gunnery officer in the Navy - in other words, she trained fighter pilots how to shoot down enemy aircraft. She knew how to work some guns men were having difficulty with. In Willow Tree Shade, Cha describes one incident where a white male pilot protested having to take directions from Ahn Cuddy because she was Asian and female. "Down here, you will shoot when I tell you to shoot!" she told the pilot.[citation needed]

Ahn Cuddy eventually became a Lieutenant and went on to work for US Navy Intelligence and the Library of Congress.[9] She worked for The National Security Agency in Washington, DC. During the Cold War, she was in charge of a think tank of over 300 agents working in the Russia section. She received a fellowship from the National Security Agency to study at the University of Southern California in 1956. Ahn Cuddy worked on many top secret projects for the Department of Defense and other agencies during her service with the United States government until 1959.[10]

Even today, Ahn Cuddy's accomplishments are considered remarkable and unparalleled.[7][11][12][13]

Personal life[edit]

Even in her personal life, Ahn Cuddy proved a trailblazer. In April 1947 she married Chief Petty Officer Francis X. "Frank" Cuddy,[14] an Irish-American. They defied anti-miscegenation laws and wed at the only place[10] that would marry them: a Navy chapel in Washington, D.C. Francis also worked for Navy Intelligence and the NSA. He was a code-breaker and helped the United States free Korea. He helped finance the Ahn family's Moongate restaurant business. In 1959 the couple moved to Los Angeles to raise their children and also in hopes of winning her mother's acceptance of her mixed-race marriage.[15]

The couple had two children, Philip "Flip" and Christine. Ahn Cuddy left the intelligence community in 1959, so she could spend more time with her children. Returning to California, she helped her eldest brother Philip Ahn (the pioneering Asian American actor) and sister Soorah run their popular Chinese restaurant, Moongate, in Panorama City. After Philip died in 1978, Ahn Cuddy largely filled the role of family representative, worked to archive her legendary family's records, and managed the restaurant until 1990.[7][13]

Later life[edit]

In 2003, the State Assembly of California of District 28 named Cuddy the Woman of the Year in honor of her commitment to public service. On October 5, 2006 she received the American Courage Award from the Asian American Justice Center in Washington D.C.[16]

In her elder years, she remained active, speaking at Navy functions and Korean American community events, even campaigning for presidential candidate Barack Obama. A breast cancer survivor, she helped raise money for the cause. She was honored with numerous accolades by government bodies and nonprofits. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors designated a "Susan Ahn Cuddy Day". Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who introduced the declaration, was an especially devoted fan: "These were all firsts as an Asian American woman in a man's world... Anti-Asian sentiment was brazenly prevalent, but that didn't deter Susan Ahn Cuddy—she just knew what her mission was."[7][17]

Death and legacy[edit]

Susan Ahn Cuddy died at her home in Northridge, California, on June 24, 2015.[18] She was 100 years old.

Her life story is the subject of the short biography Willow Tree Shade by John Cha.[3][7][13]

Family[edit]

  • Dosan Ahn Chang Ho, 1878 – 1938 (father)
  • Helen Lee (Yi Hye Ryon), 1884 – 1969 (mother)
  • Philip Ahn, 1905 – 1978 (brother)
  • Philson Ahn, 1912 – 2001 (brother)
  • Soorah Ahn Buffum, 1917 - 2016 (sister)
  • Ralph Ahn, born 1926 - 2022 (brother)
  • Francis Xavier Cuddy, 1917 – 1998 (husband)
  • Christine Ahn Cuddy, born 1950 (daughter)
  • Philip Ahn Cuddy, born 1955 (son)

Awards and recognition[edit]

DateAward/recognitionFrom
March 11, 1985Appreciation of ServiceIndependence Hall of Korea[citation needed]
August 15, 1987National Merit Award #4803Republic of South Korea from President Chun Doo Hwan[citation needed]
June 17, 1992Appreciation AwardKAC – 12th Annual National College Leadership Conference[citation needed]
August 11, 1992Recognition of ServiceCounty of LA Supervisor Mike Antonovich[citation needed]
March 1, 1994Achievement AwardMarch First Women's Association USA[citation needed]
May 10, 1995Appreciation1st Annual Korean Culture Night KSA UC Riverside[citation needed]
July 28, 1996AppreciationRadio Korea Los Angeles[citation needed]
December 14, 2000Trailblazer AwardKoreAm Journal[citation needed]
December 15, 2000AppreciationMarch First Women's Association USA[citation needed]
May 24, 2001Commendation of ServiceUS Navy Assault Craft Unit 5 Camp Pendleton[citation needed]
May 24, 2003Woman of the YearCalifornia State Assembly from Assemblyman Mark Ridley-Thomas[19]
March 24, 2003CongratulationsGovernor Arnold Schwarzenegger[citation needed]
March 24, 2003CongratulationsLt. Governor Cruz Bustamonte[citation needed]
March 24, 2003CommendationService to Korean American Community from University of Southern California[citation needed]
August 8, 2003CommendationThe Los Angeles City Council[citation needed]
September 11, 2003Recognition of ServiceState Senator Richard Alarcon[citation needed]
December 10, 2003Korean American PioneerCalifornia State Board of Equalization from John Chiang[citation needed]
November 18, 20043 Dosan Post OfficeCity of Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn[citation needed]
November 18, 2004Congratulatory CertificateLA County Supervisor Yvonne Burke[citation needed]
November 18, 2004Congratulatory CertificateGovernor Arnold Schwarzenegger[citation needed]
January 16, 2005Birthday greetingsCity of LA – home delivered by Tom La Bonge[citation needed]
October 5, 2006American Courage AwardAsian American Justice Center, Washington, DC[19]
November 2, 2006Recognition of ServicePresident 1995–2001 from March First Women's Association USA[citation needed]
November 17, 2007Pioneer AwardChurch of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints of California[citation needed]
August 12, 2007AppreciationChairperson Korean Independence Day Concert from City of Irvine[citation needed]
January 19, 2008Pioneer Korean AwardGovernor Arnold Schwarzenegger[citation needed]
November 7, 2008AppreciationHung Sa Dan[citation needed]
November 11, 2008Recognition of ServiceCity of Malibu Veteran's Day Ceremony from County of LA Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky[citation needed]
January 16, 2009Birthday GreetingsCounty of La Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas[citation needed]
May 1, 2009Leadership AwardSouthern California Edison 4th Annual APA Heritage Month Celebration[citation needed]
May 1, 2009Recognition of ServiceCalifornia State Senate Gloria Romero[citation needed]
May 1, 2009Recognition of ServiceCalifornia State Senate Carol Liu[citation needed]
May 1, 2009Recognition of ServiceCalifornia State Controller John Chiang[citation needed]
January 16, 2010Recognition of 95th BirthdayUS Navy[citation needed]
January 16, 2011Recognition of 95th BirthdayLA County Board of Supervisors[citation needed]
January 16, 2012Recognition of 95th BirthdayRepublic of Korea[citation needed]
August 15, 2013Veteran of the GameLos Angeles Dodgers[citation needed]
January 16, 2014Korean 100th BirthdayRepublic of Korea[citation needed]
January 16, 2014Korean 100th BirthdayLA County Board of Supervisors[citation needed]
February 14, 2015Recognition of PatriotismDosan Memorial Foundation of Korea[citation needed]
January 16, 2015Recognition of 100th BirthdayLA County Board of Supervisors[citation needed]
March 10, 2015Susan Ahn Cuddy DayLA County Board of Supervisors[20]
April 10, 2015Recognition of PatriotismSoengnam City Mayor Yi Jae Yong[citation needed]
May 9, 2015Recognition of Navy ServiceUS Navy Seabee Museum Port Hueneme[citation needed]
May 29, 2015Recognition of Navy ServiceUS Navy Fleet Readiness Center Point Mugu[citation needed]
June 6, 2015Recognition of LeadershipThe Los Angeles City Council[citation needed]
June 6, 2015Recognition of ContributionAmerican Cancer Society Relay for Life[citation needed]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Ha, Julia (2009). "Defining Herself". KoreAm (February 2009).
  2. ^ Jump up to:a b c "Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month Features Notable Asian Americans". Asian and Pacific Islander Affairs. District of Columbia. 15 May 2009. Retrieved 22 November 2009.
  3. ^ Jump up to:a b Keely Damara. "First Asian American woman Navy officer honored in 'Born to Lead'". PCC Courier. Archived from the original on 2015-04-12. Retrieved 2015-04-12.
  4. ^ Jump up to:a b Lange, Katie (30 April 2021). "Navy Lt. Susan Ahn Cuddy Carved the Path for Asian American Women". U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE.
  5. ^ "Ahn Family House > Korean Studies Institute > USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences".
  6. ^ Young Korean Academy (Hung Sa Dan)
  7. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e "'Living Legend' Susan Ahn Cuddy Passes Away at 100". iamkoream.com.
  8. ^ Gandhi, Lakshmi. "The Asian American Women Who Fought to Make Their Mark in WWII". HISTORY.
  9. ^ Daniels, Paula (1996), Susan Ahn Cuddy Oral Histories, retrieved 2019-04-19
  10. ^ Jump up to:a b Kim, Sung (6 May 2020). "Susan Ahn Cuddy: Asian American Trailblazer". Los Angeles Public Library Blog.
  11. ^ "'Living Legend' Susan Ahn Cuddy Passes Away at 100". iamkoream.com.
  12. ^ "Susan Ahn Cuddy". Retrieved 2008-03-12.
  13. ^ Jump up to:a b c "Mother Didn't Speak to Me for Five Years…". Audrey Magazine. May 2005. Archived from the original on 2008-01-14. Retrieved 2008-03-12.
  14. ^ Chief Petty Officer Francis X. "Frank" Cuddy
  15. ^ "First female Asian officer speaks about her naval service". Navy Life. United States Navy. May 20, 2015.
  16. ^ "Past Awardees". advancingjustice-aajc.org. Retrieved 2019-04-19.
  17. ^ 도산 안창호 선생 장녀 안수산 美 자택서 별세 (in Korean)
  18. ^ "Interview with Philip Ahn Cuddy". 26 April 2012.
  19. ^ Jump up to:a b "Susan Ahn Cuddy, Lieutenant, U.S. Navy". Foundation for Women Warriors. 30 March 2020.
  20. ^ Lee, Suevon (March 11, 2015). "Los Angeles County Declares 'Susan Ahn Cuddy Day'". Character Media. Retrieved May 9, 2021.

Publications[edit]

External links[edit]

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2022년 4월 4일 월요일

22 Overlooked No More: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Artist and Author Who Explored Identity - The New York Times

Overlooked No More: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Artist and Author Who Explored Identity - The New York Times

Overlooked No More: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Artist and Author Who Explored Identity

She was murdered after the publication of her first novel, “Dictee,” a challenging exploration of Korean history and immigrant life that inspires Asian American writers today.



Theresa Hak Kyung Cha in about 1980, when she traveled to Seoul to work on a film project.Credit...Richard Barnes


By Dan Saltzstein
Published Jan. 7, 2022Updated Jan. 10, 2022


This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times.

In 1982, about three months before the publication of her avant-garde magnum opus, “Dictee,” Theresa Hak Kyung Cha wrote to her older brother, John.

“It is hard to say what I feel, how I feel, except that I feel freed, and I also feel naked,” she wrote. She had been carrying the manuscript around for three years and had just turned it in to her publisher.

“It feels good,” her letter said. “It feels frightening.”

“Dictee” is part memoir, part history, part experimental meditation; a challenging, innovative exploration of Cha’s life, her mother’s difficult immigrant journey across East Asia and to the United States, the fractured immigrant experience, women warriors, and language itself.


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It received a subdued reception when it was released, but in the years since, it has become an essential work for feminist writers, conceptual artists and Asian American authors and scholars. Cha would not live to see any of that, however: In November 1982, just two months after the book was published, she was raped and murdered. She was 31.

“I don’t think Theresa would ever imagine her book would survive this long and have this much influence,” John Cha said in a phone interview. “I’m very happy — it keeps her alive for me.”

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Through chapters named after the Greek muses, the book jumps from one protagonist to another: Cha herself; Joan of Arc; the early 20th-century Korean freedom fighter Yu Gwan-sun, who, at 17, was tortured and killed; and, perhaps most poignantly, Cha’s mother, who hovers over the book like a protective spirit. Through her, Cha explores a traumatic era of Korea’s history, including a decades-long Japanese occupation, a war that divided the country, a series of dictators and an ensuing diaspora, of which the Cha family was a part.


“You live in a village where the other Koreans live,” Cha wrote of her mother’s upbringing in Manchuria. “Same as you. Refugees. Immigrants. Exiles. Farther away from the land that is not your own.”




“Dictee,” published in 1982, is part memoir, part history, part experimental meditation.Credit... Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center


Language, and the deconstruction of it, are essential to the book. Little is made explicit, and the structure is enigmatic: In places, sentences are reduced to fragments; sections in French and Korean go untranslated; pictures and diagrams are presented without captions. The opening image in the book is of graffiti scrawled by Korean coal miners; it translates to “Mother, I miss you / I am hungry / I want to go home.”

“I tell my students to approach the book as if they’re learning a new language,” Cathy Park Hong, a professor at Rutgers-Newark University, wrote in her 2020 collection of essays, “Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning,” in which she devotes a chapter to Cha and “Dictee.”

“The reader is a detective, puzzling out her own connections,” she added.

But the power of a Korean American woman writing in an unapologetically avant-garde form has particular resonance for Hong.

“I find her style, while not exactly pleasurable, to be liberating,” she wrote, adding that Cha had “made the immigrant’s discomfort with English into a possible form of expression.”

“Dictee” is also poignant for Asian American writers who have few precedents where authors portrayed their cultural history and inner experiences.

“My admiration for her is her sense of entitlement,” said Min Jin Lee, the Korean American author of the novel “Pachinko” (2017), in a phone interview. “I had never met anybody like me, who shared my biography, who felt a sense of entitlement to have that level of difficulty in her work.”


The culmination of all of these elements has made “Dictee” as much a powerful symbol as it is a powerful read. It has had two marathon readings, one in 2019 in New York, the other in December at the University of Southern California. It is frequently taught in Asian American and feminist studies programs.




Cha’s hands on her typewriter. In addition to writing, she dabbled in performance art.Credit... James Cha, via the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive


Theresa Hak Kyung Cha was born on March 4, 1951, in Busan, Korea, the third of five children of Hyung Sang and Hyung Soon Cha. Like so many other Korean families of the era, the Chas moved numerous times: to Manchuria — where her mother had been born — to escape the Japanese occupation; then back to Korea (first to Seoul, then to Busan, then back to Seoul); then Hawaii; and finally to San Francisco, where Theresa found her creative spirit. Displacement would be a major theme in her work.

After attending a Catholic school, she enrolled briefly at the University of San Francisco before transferring to the University of California, Berkeley. She earned four degrees, in art and comparative literature, while working as a cashier at the Berkeley Art Museum. She spent time in North Beach, ensconced in an artistic crowd, and studied with the artist Jim Melchert and the scholar Bertrand Augst.

She spent a year in Paris, studying French, filmmaking and film theory and developing a fascination with filmmakers like Carl Dreyer, Chris Marker and Marguerite Duras. She later edited “Apparatus,” a 1981 collection of essays by film scholars and avant-garde filmmakers.

Cha also experimented with performance art. “Barren Cave Mute” (1974), both enigmatic and beautiful, involved the three words of the title written in wax on long sheets of paper. A single candle illuminated a darkened room, and when the flame came into contact with the paper, it began to melt the wax, revealing the words.

Other pieces were playful. “Mouth to Mouth” (1975), an eight-minute black-and-white film, combined Korean letters and an image of a mouth creating the simplest of shapes — a commentary, perhaps, on the idea of a “mother tongue.”


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A still from Cha’s 1975 performance piece “Aveugle Voix" (“Blind Voice”), which was on display at the Bronx Museum of the Arts in 2003.Credit...Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Memorial Foundation


A later piece, “Passages Paysages” (1978), was a video installation consisting of three monitors showing altered images of gestures, family photographs and words paired with a narration in English, French and Korean — Cha’s own voice, soft and ethereal.

“Her voice was like breath,” her friend Sandy Flitterman-Lewis said by phone. “You had to get close. That’s how she drew you in.”

In 1979, Cha traveled to Seoul with her brother James to work on her only feature film, “White Dust From Mongolia,” a comparison of modern Korea to the Korea of their youth. It exists only in fragments of script and film. In 1980, she moved to New York. By this point, she was already writing “Dictee” while working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a researcher. She also helped her Berkeley classmate Reese Williams start Tanam Press, which would publish “Apparatus” and “Dictee.”

In 1982, Cha married Richard Barnes, a photographer who was documenting the renovation of the Puck Building, a famed red brick building in New York’s SoHo neighborhood. “Dictee” was published that September and received a modest but positive reception: It made it to the No. 5 spot on the paperback version of “The A List,” a best-seller list compiled from independent New York bookstores.

About two months later, on Nov. 5, 1982, Cha went to the Puck Building to meet Barnes but was intercepted by a security guard, Joey Sanza, who raped and strangled her and bludgeoned her to death. Her body was found in a parking lot a few blocks away.

Two friends, Flitterman-Lewis and Susan Wolf, had planned to meet Cha for dinner that night. When she didn’t show up, they eventually wandered across the street to St. Mark’s Bookshop, where “Dictee” was prominently displayed. John Cha received a copy of the book in the mail on the day of his sister’s funeral.


It would take five years and three trials before Sanza was convicted. By then he had fled New York for Florida, where he had been arrested in multiple rapes. Among the evidence were wedding rings he had collected from several of his victims, including Cha. He remains in prison.

In the years since her death, Cha’s artistic reputation has grown. In 1993, the curator Lawrence Rinder organized an exhibition of her work at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. The Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Archive was established in 1992 at the Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, and there have been retrospective shows as far afield as the Antoni Tàpies Museum in Barcelona, Spain. “Dictee” was republished by Third Woman Press in 1995 and the University of California Press in 2001.

But her death has sometimes overshadowed her work. Many who have written about Cha have struggled with how much to dwell on her rape and murder. It “saturated my reading of ‘Dictee,’ gave the book a haunted prophetic aura,” Hong wrote in “Minor Feelings.”

It can also sometimes feel like Cha is grappling with her own mortality in “Dictee”; in a hauntingly prescient line that might be autobiographical, she writes of struggling with how to move forward against “the onslaught of time,” adding, “She says to herself if she were able to write she could continue to live.”


A version of this article appears in print on Jan. 10, 2022, Section A, Page 18 of the New York edition with the headline: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. 

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