Medium Post #2
Rereading Jennifer Cooke’s Letter on a Plague Year in Week 10, alongside Kang Sangjung’s Memories of a Zainichi Korean Childhood, helped me notice new things about how people respond during times of crisis. The first time I read Cooke’s piece, I mostly saw it as a personal reflection on the uncertainty and fear brought by the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. But now, with everything we’ve talked about in class regarding mutual aid and solidarity, I realize her message was also about how ordinary people step up when systems fall apart.
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Cooke talks about how neighbors began helping each other, setting up local Facebook groups, sharing phone numbers, delivering food or medicine, not because someone told them to, but because they knew it was the right thing to do. This type of action felt especially powerful after reading Kang’s memoir, which tells the story of his childhood as a Zainichi Korean living in postwar Japan. His family and community faced constant exclusion, racism, and discrimination, but they also looked after each other. Without access to the same jobs, schools, or resources as Japanese citizens, they survived through everyday acts of support , sharing food, offering protection, and holding on to their identity.
These texts are able to show us that mutual aid not as a charity or handout, but as survival, and as something rooted in love, community, and resistance. Cooke writes about new activists being born during the pandemic, but Kang’s story reminds us that many communities, especially marginalized ones, have been practicing mutual aid long before the rest of the world noticed. His memories show that even in times of exclusion and fear, people still find ways to create meaning in life, to care for one another, and to stay human.
Thinking with my fellow classmates about mutual aid in Japan has deepened my understanding of how solidarity works across time and place. It’s not always big protests or political speeches. Sometimes, it’s quiet. It’s about listening, remembering, or refusing to give up. I think what might have helped even more is if we had discussed how mutual aid continues after the crisis moment passes. How do we keep building these networks when the news moves on or the sense of urgency fades? There’s been many times where I see solidarity spread like wildfire in the news today, but then tomorrow it feels like it was just a blur, radio silence. This feels like an important question that keeps us on our toes, as we think about how to make care and connection a lasting part of our everyday life, not just a temporary reaction to disaster.
