This presentation examines a strike at a mission hospital in colonial Korea following the suicide of a Korean nursing student. It situates the event within the larger contexts of the Japanese empire, Protestant mission enterprise, and international nursing organizing, revealing tensions not only between Koreans and missionaries, but also among Koreans, among missionaries, and between Korean and other nursing communities. The strike pivoted on different expectations for and visions of the training and employment of nurses that may not be simply reduced as a labor or racial conflict. The strike also allows for an exploration of the lived experiences of nurses and their broader challenges in colonial Korea.

Sonja M. Kim is an associate professor of Asian and Asian American Studies at Binghamton University, State University of New York. She is the author of Imperatives of Care: Women and Medicine in Colonial Korea (University of Hawai’i Press, 2019) and co-editor of Future Yet to Come: Sociotechnical Imaginaries in Modern Korea (University of Hawai’i Press, 2021). Her current research examines histories of care and public health in postcolonial Korea.

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