hankyoreh

By Choi Woo-ri, staff reporter

“It is more distressing and upsetting to see it for myself. They [comfort women] were only young girls…I respect their bravery in enduring such difficult lives.”

Frank Quintero’s face twisted in dismay as he listened to the voice full of anger. The voice was of Kang Duk-Kyung, one of the former ‘comfort women’, and came from a video installed at War and Women’s Human Rights Museum in Seoul’s Seongsan neighborhood. Quintero, who carefully read the prisoner’s interrogation documents of the Allied Forces in the museum, is the former mayor of Glendale, California.

The former mayor visited Korea on Apr. 14, after passing the bill to establish a “peace monument” for comfort women in Glendale Central Park. The city’s new monument will be the first overseas “peace monument” that is identical to the one established in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul. It will be funded by Korean Americans.

In Glendale, five council members are elected and each year, the Council selects one member to serve as mayor on a rotating basis. Quintero is a member of the Democratic Party and served as the mayor of Glendale for two years, until April 10. He will continue to work as city councilor until November. Quintero is a Hispanic American and served in the Vietnam War. After becoming mayor, he began studying politics and history and came to learn about Korean comfort women.

He explained that “As there are about 100,000 Armenians in Glendale, there were lots of concerns over ethnic tensions. So I believe that citizens will be able to sympathize with the sufferings of Korean comfort women.”

Quintero immediately agreed to the proposal by 15,000 Korean Americans in Glendale, who were seeking a solution to the issue of comfort women. On July 30, 2007, he passed the bill urging Tokyo to apologize to ‘comfort women’ in the House of Representatives and designated July 30 as “Korean Comfort Women Day” in 2011.

In response to the question of whether there was any opposition or complaints from Japanese, Quintero replied, “I received emails from Japan only. There are many Japanese Americans, but none of them emailed me. I think that the current Japanese identity is different from that of the Imperialism period in the past. But they need to know that it is necessary for Japan to show contrition for its history.”

Quintero wondered, “Considering the fact that Japan advocates democracy, I cannot understand why Japan avoids addressing the comfort women issue, which is fully known to the international community.”

This was Quintero’s second visit to Korea. He will return to the US on Apr. 26. The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan presented an appreciation plaque to Quintero and the former mayor presented a “key of fortune” to Kim Bok-dong and Gil Won-ok, former ‘comfort women’.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]