March 1st 1919 Movement Joshua Kim Website Category Junior Division

Choosing my topic for the NHD contest was a difficult choice. Most topics in this competition will regard problems with rights and responsibilities in the United States. However, I wanted my topic to be on something that had not been done before. For this, I looked for ideas from my parents. My mother told me about my great grandfather, Kim Jae-Moon. He lived in a time of stress and torture from imperialist Japan from 1907 through 1945. What I did not know was that he was a Korean Independence student activist in the June 10th, 1926 movement. Well-educated and intelligent, he and his fellow students knew that the colonization of Korea was wrong and protested against imperialist Japan. However, they were unsuccessful and put into jail. When he passed away, he was buried in a place reserved in Korea only to people who had served their country to the fullest. This inspired me to do my NHD project on the March 1st 1919 Movement, which started this protest against Imperialist Japan.

To conduct this research, I researched several websites and watched Korean documentaries regarding this movement. Also, my parents provided many general facts about the March 1st 1919 Movement. Furthermore, I read a book by Robert Arauoj entitled "Sovereignty, Human Rights, and Self-Determination: The Meaning of International Law" that defined the right of self-determination and background about this right.

I selected undoubtedly one of the most popular presentation category, the website, for a couple reasons. First, my creativity is more visible through what I can produce through the computer, and less so through my handwriting and commentating skills present in the display board and documentary presentation selections. Also, there is no picture limit, so I can paste countless pictures over the website, without any hassle. To create my project, I cut my research paper into sections, and created separate tabs and micro tabs for each section. Then, after fixing errors from feedback from the instructor, I designed my layout with subtitles for both text and other multimedia. Finally, text was inserted and the website was edited for errors.

The March 1st 1919 Movement directly ties into the theme of Rights and Responsibilities because the Japanese denied the Koreans the right of self-determination. The right of selfdetermination is nations have the right to choose their sovereignty and political status without interference from other countries. Japan obviously denied this freedom from the Koreans, and this movement was the protest for this right, which they finally attained after the Japanese surrounded in World War II. If this movement did not occur, Korea would not have gotten any international attention that lead to cooperation with the OSS (the CIA of today), that would mean that Korea would have no cooperation of friendship with the United States.