Review: Willow Tree Shade

Marianne Hirsch described the life of Maus author and second generation Holocaust survivor Art Spiegelman as "dominated by memories that are not his own." She called them "postmemories" – borne out of the relationship between the children of survivors with the survivors themselves.

Although the second generation did not experience the trauma themselves, they grew up with their parents' memories, and the stories are so powerful that to the second generation they become memories in their own right. [Source]

I thought about this as I read Willow Tree Shade, the 2002 biography of Susan Ahn Cuddy. She had an amazing life – born in 1915, she was among the first "second-generation" Korean-Americans born in the U.S. She was the first Asian-American woman to serve in the U.S. Navy (as well as its first Asian-American officer), and she flouted anti-miscegenation laws in the 1940s by marrying an Irish-American named Francis "Frank" Cuddy.
Yet the book is just as much a chronicle of her interactions with her postmemories. Susan’s father, Ahn Chang Ho (안창호/安昌浩, a.k.a. Dosan 島山), was a Korean independence activist and patriot. Given that Susan always ended up talking about her father during interviews, author John Cha felt compelled to include information about her parents’ lives, too. Some of the most poignant chapters in the book are later in her life, as she reflects on her father's legacy.

Susan’s postmemories began when she was four years-old, when she saw pictures of atrocities committed by Imperial Japanese forces in Korea. The last time she saw her father was in 1926. When he died in 1938 from illnesses he contracted in Japanese prisons, Susan resolved to see his dream fulfilled. In 1942, Susan enlisted in the Navy through its new WAVES program "to carry on my father’s fight against the Japanese."

And even though Susan would not visit Korea until she was in her 60s, she explained, "We grew up breathing and thinking about Korean independence."

In 1959, after 16 years of federal service both in and out of uniform, she helped her brothers and sister open the Moongate restaurant in Los Angeles, which operated until 1990.

Yet she never stopped trying to understand her father better. When her older brother Philip passed away in 1978, she inherited her parents’ papers, records, and memorabilia. She spent three years cataloguing everything her family had kept. She donated much of those materials to South Korea’s Independence Hall museum in Cheonan, and attended the opening in 1987.

I’m not 100% sure what the title "Willow Tree Shade" refers to. It might refer to the willow trees of Cheonan. After walking through Independence Hall and seeing her father’s legacy on display, "She walked slowly toward the pond, looking for a weeping willow tree that was sure to be there in Cheonan, a region famous for its willow trees." P292

But I think a passage on p48 fits with the postmemories theme better:

"Each tree, rock, brush, shrub, flower, and plant had a story and meaning which only Dosan knew in his heart. Especially the weeping willow tree – it reminded him of everything back home. He watered it, talked to it, and gave it special care for many years. While the weeping willow tree symbolized all that was melancholy to Dosan, to the children it was a place to play."

Susan Ahn Cuddy passed away on June 24, 2015.

For the website managed by her son Philip “Flip” Cuddy – and where to buy a copy of the book (don't buy it on Amazon) – see:

http://www.susanahncuddy.com/willowtreeshadebook.html

For the Ahn Family Archives on Facebook (managed by her nephew Wesley) see:

https://www.facebook.com/TheAhnFamilyArchives