the inhabitants of Kanewai and as he weaves the
Hawaiian shamanic tradition with popular culture
subtexts such as The X-Files. Children of a Fireland
received honorable mention in the Association
for Asian American Studies’ 2004 Book Award in
Prose and Poetry.
In the short stories collected in Language of the
Geckos and Other Stories (2005), his most recent
book, Pak explores the lives of local Hawaiians and
their relationships to the past. Pak is presently a
professor of English and creative writing at the
University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Bibliography
Kim, Elaine. “Korean American Literature.” In An In-
terethnic Companion to Asian American Literature,
edited by King-Kok Cheung. 156–191. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Kwon, Brenda. “Gary Pak.” In Words Matter: Con-
versations with Asian American Writers, edited by
King-Kok Cheung, 303–19. Honolulu: University
of Hawaii Press, 2000.
Jeehyun Lim
Pak, Ty (1938– )
Ty Pak, whose Korean name is Tae-Yong Pak, was
born in Korea and witnessed the Korean War be-
tween 1950 and 1953, during which his father died.
He graduated from Seoul National University in
1960, and worked as a reporter for the Korea Re-
public and the Korea Times for the next five years.
In 1965 he came to the United States for gradu-
ate study and received his Ph.D. in English from
Bowling Green State University, Ohio, in 1970. He
taught as a professor in the English department of
the University of Hawaii.
In addition to publishing short stories in Am-
erasia Journal, Hawaii Review, Bamboo Ridge, The
Literary Realm, and The Echo, Pak published short-
story collections such as Guilt Payment (1983) and
Moonbay (1999) as well as a novel, Cry Korea Cry
(1999). His works deal with issues of survival, guilt,
trauma, shame, liberation, displacement, violence,
and war.
Pak shows a strong interest in mixed-blood chil-
dren and racial conflict in Korea and America. Cry
Korea Cry, for instance, depicts the life of a mixed-
blood Korean war orphan, Moo Moo (“Nothing
Nothing” in Korean). Born to a poor Korean pros-
titute and a sex-starved American soldier, Moo
Moo leads a life that represents the complex his-
tory of Korea after the Korean War. After experi-
encing harsh racial discrimination and political
disorder in Korea, he finally decides not to belong
to any of the divided Koreas. Instead, he decides to
live in the United States, making films to restore
his life with the help of art.
Pak’s writing also seeks to represent the pres-
ence of Koreans in Hawaii and other parts of
America. Moonbay deals with the lives of Korean
immigrant men who “felt penalized, castrated in
subtle, invisible ways” (“A Debt” 33). The stories
in Guilt Payment have more diverse themes: the
atrocities of war, religions of Korea and America,
moral ambiguity, nostalgia and patriotism. Inter-
estingly, Pak’s characters mostly suffer from a vari-
ety of psychological or physical wounds, and they
sometimes assume temporal or mistaken identities.
Critics such as Elaine Kim and King-Kok Cheung
note Pak’s misogynist tone, while other scholars
like Seiwoong Oh point out his importance as an
immigrant writer.Bibliography
Cheung, King-Kok. “Fictional Re-presentation of the
Los Angeles Riots: ‘The Court Interpreter’ by Ty
Pak.” Journal of American Studies (Seoul) 33, no. 2
(Winter 2001): 183–200.
Kim, Elaine H. “Korean American Literature.” In An
Interethnic Companion to Asian American Litera-
ture, edited by King-Kok Cheung, 156–191. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Kwon, Brenda Lee. Beyond Ke’eaumoku: Koreans, Na-
tionalism, and Local Culture in Hawai’i. New York:
Garland, 1999.
Oh, Seiwoong. “Ty Pak.” In Asian American Short
Story Writers: An A-to-Z Guide, edited by Guiyou
Huang, 251–255. New York: Greenwood Press,
2003.Pak, Ty 237