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Year of Graduation
2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
MFA: Children's Literature
Directing Professor
Hillary Homzie
Abstract
INVITED BY THE DICTATOR is about nine-year-old Hong Mi who spends an all-expense-paid summer in North Korea with nine other Korean American kids. She’s excited to learn everything about Korea to make her parents proud. To her alarm, she discovers the kids will be separated from their parents even before the trip starts. Thrown into an orchestrated tour with a relentless diet of propaganda, Hong Mi must adapt quickly, but she soon realizes Korea isn’t anything she imagined it would be.
Compared to the perfect North Korean children put on display, Hong Mi questions if she’s even Korean. But nothing prepares her for the horrors of American-led massacres at the war atrocities museum. Everything she’s known about her Korean and American identity is obliterated. Then, she begins meeting others in the diaspora, and at the international reunification festival, she experiences an overwhelming oneness with the Koreans. By the end of summer, she learns about jeong—the deep warmth and care between people—and what it truly means to be herself, Korean American.
This thesis draws on the traditions of Asian American middle-grade ancestral travel narratives and explores themes of ethnic identity formation, transculturality, and transnationalism. The storytelling style incorporates elements of memoir and travelogue. INVITED BY THE DICTATOR hopes to offer both a mirror for young Asian American readers and a window into one of the most secretive nations in the world.
Recommended Citation
Kim, Caroline, "Invited by the Dictator" (2025). Children's Literature (MFA) Theses, Hollins University. 22.
https://digitalcommons.hollins.edu/mfatheses/22
Purpose Statement
The purpose of preserving this thesis document is to provide a definitive record of student progress upon completion of the degree. This text will not reflect any revisions to the manuscript made after degree completion. For the most current version of the work, please contact its author.