Soyo (Uprising)

During the Japanese occupation of Korea, there were 238 small and big protests on Jeju Island from 1930 to January, 1932 among the women divers called haenyeo whose protestor numbers were close to 17,000. When the Japanese governor of Jeju Island, Deiki Taguchi, who was also the head of the haenyeo union, exploited them, the haenyeo participated in protests, and several hundreds and sometimes several thousands of haenyeo protested over two years. During one of their protests, they encountered the Japanese governor of Jeju Island, and when they demanded a talk with him and he tried to run away from them, they got on the hood of his car until he heard their demands. When some haenyeo were arrested for their participation in the protest, they attacked the police station. The fierce protests staged by the women divers were unprecedented not only in Korean history but also in world history, and although more than a hundred haenyeo were arrested and incarcerated, they fought on and won the battle against the Japanese oppression. This history of their victory is not known to the general public due to the fact that their fight against Japanese oppression has been treated as the history of marginalized women; however, their fight in essence was to ensure their survival, the tenacious and courageous struggle of Jeju people against the exploitation and oppression throughout years of Korean history. In this graphic novel with colored illustrations, the writer Kim Hongmo tells the vivid story of what life was like for the haenyeo at the turn of the 20th century and the history of their fight against oppression.