7C Minjung hosted its first event of a three-part educational series titled “Korean Liberation, Palestinian Self-Determination” at The Motley Coffeehouse last Friday: a teach-in that put the history of Korea’s March First Movement in conversation with current movements for Palestinian rights.
7C Minjung — a leftist Korean and Korean American student-led organization — formed this spring to provide a space on campus to amplify Korean history, identity and liberation.
“[We’re] organizing broadly to uplift the Korean history and Korean tradition of revolutionary struggle against imperialism, against colonialism, against capitalist exploitation and against patriarchy,” club leader Robinson Lee PZ ’26 said.
The first teach-in introduced these goals and provided a brief history of Korean resistance and organizing by exemplifying the March First Movement — in which Koreans fought for independence from violent Japanese colonial rule in 1919 — to a group of 20 attendees and organizers. The speakers compared and contrasted Korean and Palestinian resistance, framing the histories of the two countries in the context of modern global conflicts.
The speakers provided information about both the division of Korea and the United Nations Partition of Palestine, and focused on the imperial role the United States played in both conflicts. Lee studied abroad in South Korea last year and showed attendees photos from pro-Palestine protests in Seoul to highlight Korean solidarity with Palestine.
“We think that part of [Korean solidarity with Palestine] is asserting much more direct solidarity with Muslim students on these campuses who have experienced islamophobia,” Lee said.
Some students expressed that they were apprehensive about publicly identifying with pro-Palestine organizing in the wake of Pomona College’s 2024 suspension of student protesters, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ designation of Pomona as a “hostile campus.”
“I know many students particularly feel like, after the fall of 2024, in October, Pomona unilaterally suspended students without due process,” Lee said. “There are so many students who feel like, for instance, that they don’t want to be public about their associations with this group or that group.”
“We matter, we belong, and our stories matter, our politics matter, especially in this moment, when just bringing up the issue of Palestinian human rights gets so much state and school punishment.”
Teach-in attendee Junee Manadhar SC ’27 said that she values opportunities to learn about and discuss political topics on campus — such as Palestinian self-determination — that might otherwise be minimized by administration and campus culture at predominantly white institutions.
“Especially in an area like Claremont where it’s very white, I feel like a lot of [these conversations] would go very unnoticed and kind of swept under the rug,” Manadhar said.
Manadhar also said she appreciated that students were hosting events like this since busy academic and social lives can make it difficult to stay informed about issues she cares about.
“I very easily found myself doomscrolling a lot on social media, with everything that’s going on right now,” Manadhar said. “But it’s nice to come to events like these and see there are other people who are interested in learning about this or are currently working with other people on this and trying to spread more awareness.”
Despite not having prior knowledge about the history of Korean liberation, attendee Elliot Schweitzer PZ ’26 said he was able to learn and engage in conversation because the information was accessible.
“[The teach-in] felt very open for someone who didn’t have any experience with the topics,” Schweitzer said. “I am not like a history student. I study physics. So, I am not familiar with a lot of this stuff, so [teach-ins are] like my primary way of learning about things like this.”
7C Minjung is made up of primarily Korean and Korean American students across the consortium, but Lee said others with a strong connection to Korean identity and history are welcome to contribute. In the future, 7C Minjung hopes to inspire student activism in students of all backgrounds after college.
“My main goal is to really impress on people that your time in college isn’t the end of any sort of activist organizing,” Lee said.
Minjung hopes to host at least one more event this semester, beyond the teach-in series. According to Lee, the future of the club will remain flexible, but they plan to maintain their current goals of fostering meaningful political conversations amid educational censorship.
“We’ve always had to assert ourselves,” Lee said. “We matter, we belong, and our stories matter, our politics matter, especially in this moment, when just bringing up the issue of Palestinian human rights gets so much state and school punishment.”
The next events in the series feature a guest panel with Student Coalition for Palestine on March 27 and “Jeju Lives!,” a teach-in and celebration of the Jeju Uprising on April 3, each hosted at The Motley.
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