Remembering 'Grandma Lee,' who defended Glendale’s monument to 'comfort women'

At a memorial in Glendale on Saturday, Korean American groups will be paying tribute to one of the last survivors of Japan’s sexual slavery during World War II.

Ok-seon Lee died this week in South Korea at 97. She was known as "Grandma Lee" on her travels to U.S. cities with large Korean American communities like Los Angeles and Glendale to call for greater accountability from the Japanese government.

“She said the war ended in 1945 but the war did not end for us,” said Phyllis Kim, who leads the L.A.-based Comfort Women Action for Redress & Education, or CARE.

On her 2014 trip to Glendale, Lee worked with Kim to defend the city's monument to comfort women. The statue of a girl wearing traditional Korean clothing and a bird on her shoulder had become the focus of an international legal battle when a group led by Japanese immigrants called Global Alliance for Historical Truth-US Corporation sued to have it removed. Lee submitted a declaration to the court in support of the monument.

With her halo of short white hair and blunt style of speaking that belied her funny, loving nature, Lee left a strong impression on her US audiences.

Phyllis Kim, an L.A.-based advocate for comfort women, stands next to a memorial to comfort women in Glendale.

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“So many people still remember her, and when they see her pictures, they certainly, certainly remember her, and they remember her testimony,” Kim said.

The lawsuit over the Glendale statue known as the “Peace Monument” made it to the Supreme Court. But justices in 2017 declined to hear the case. The monument, a replica of a statue in Seoul, remains in the park by Glendale Central Library.

It’s where the memorial service will take place at 10 a.m. led by young Korean Americans with the Hwarang Youth Foundation.

In South Korea, more than 200 women had self-identified as survivors and registered with the South Korean government. With Lee’s death, only six of these women are left. Another vocal "comfort woman" activist, Gil Won-ok, died in February.

Ok-seon Lee sits in her bedroom at the 'Sharing House', a commune and nursing home for former comfort women, in Toechon village, east of Seoul in 2018.

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Lee was in her 70s when she started speaking out at rallies and press conferences about being abducted as a 14-year-old off the streets of Busan and being trafficked to China to be a “comfort woman." The euphemistic term was coined by the Japanese military to describe an estimated 200,000 girls and women across Asia forced into sexual servitude.

Japan and South Korea reached an agreement a decade ago that included restitution for the comfort women.

Phyllis Kim, executive director of Comfort Women Action for Redress & Education, (far left) accompanied Ok-seon Lee, in the white and turquoise hanbok, on a trip to Washington D.C.

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But it was not the full apology that Lee and other survivors wanted. Kim recalled Lee saying “it is really the Japanese government's recognition and apology that will resolve the issue. Money is not the resolution.”

Lee endured three years of sexual slavery before the war ended. With no means to return home, she remained in China, marrying, raising a family and converting to Catholicism. Saturday's service will include a homily from a Catholic priest in acknowledgement of Lee’s faith.

Lee lived in China for over five decades before returning to Korea in 2000 to live out her remaining years in her homeland. She learned to properly read Korean as her education had been snatched from her when she was abducted.

“She had to recover her nationality,” Kim said. “But she was determined to return. She said it was time for her to come home.”

Today's memorial

The event will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday at the memorial in the park between Glendale Central Library and the Adult Recreation Center at 201 E. Colorado St., Glendale.