Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

In her exceptional debut historical novel Pachinko, Min Jin Lee follows four generations of a Korean family. It is a heart-wrenching and soulful story about how family members endure and adjust to the colonization of Korea by the Japanese in 1910, their immigrant status in Japan, and the subsequent division of their homeland after WWII. The book also probes family dynamics as each individual wrestles with his or her new identity as a Korean immigrant contending with racism and discrimination by the Japanese.

Hoonie and Yangjin, a poor couple living in a fishing village on the southern tip of Korea, have a daughter named Sunja. When Sunja is in her teens, she meets a married man, Hasan, and becomes pregnant. Hasan offers to provide for Sunja and their son, but Sunja does not want the life he offers. Sunja’s mother speaks to a minister who is moving from Korea to Japan. Despite her pregnancy, the kind minister asks Sunja to marry him, allowing Sunja and her mother to escape the shame and humiliation of Sunja’s illegitimate pregnancy.

Sunja and her new husband Isek move in with Isek’s brother and his wife in Osaka, Japan where they face occupational limitations. As Sunja’s oldest son grows, he sees being Korean as “a dark, heavy rock." His greatest, secret desire is to be Japanese. Sunja’s younger son’s girlfriend wants to move to America. “To her, being Korean was just another horrible encumbrance, much like being poor or having a shameful family that you could not cast off. Why would she ever live there?  But she could not imagine clinging to Japan, which was like a beloved stepmother who refused to love you, so Yumi dreamed of Los Angeles. There, no one would care that we are not Japanese.”

Sunja’s sons eventually operate Pachinko parlors in Japan, a permitted occupation for Koreans. Similar to pinball, the balls bounce around the Pachinko machine and land in random locations. And like life, Pachinko players must make decisions based on where the balls land even if the game is rigged. For Koreans, getting ahead is nearly impossible irrespective of how hard they work. The Japanese limit their opportunities and then ridicule them for not rising in the Japanese social hierarchy - a predictable pattern in systemic racism.

The family members labor and suffer but remain devoted to one another as they adapt to their changing circumstances. They experience joys and triumphs as well as despair and pain. Lee elucidates the superstitions and traditions that serve the family well and cause them to suffer. As Lee states in the opening line, “History has failed us, but no matter.” Min Jin Lee, however, succeeds in writing this epic family story that illuminates how one Korean family perseveres beneath the weight of prejudice and pain.