Washington, D.C. - Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Mihan Lee, an 11th-grader who lives in my Congressional district and attends Georgetown Day School. Recently, she competed against nearly 5,400 middle and high school students nationwide in an essay contest titled "Lincoln and a New Birth of Freedom." Her essay, “A New Country, A New Century, A New Freedom” earned her grand prize honors. The contest was held to commemorate the opening of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois. Mihan, a 17-year-old, second-generation Korean-American read her award-winning prose during the dedication ceremony.
Although Mihan’s essay was not specifically about President Lincoln, she captured his message of freedom and courage in a story about her great-grandfather, who lived in Korea under Japanese colonization. Her great-grandfather, Jung In Seung, created the first Korean dictionary at a time when the language was banned under Japanese rule. He was arrested and interred in a prison camp until the liberation of Korea in 1945.
Mr. Speaker, I applaud Mihan Lee and wish her continued success in the years ahead. I submit her eassy for the Record.
Grand Prize Winner
Mihan Lee, 11th grade
“A New Country, A New Century, A New Freedom”
Potomac, MD
My understanding of freedom is inextricably tied up with my understanding of language. My great-grandfather, in 1940s Korea, was arrested for putting together the first Korean dictionary, when the language had been banned by the Japanese government. My great-grandfather believed that words, the medium by which we formulate and share ideas, can bind and break the very ideas they express if the
language is that of an oppressor. He fought for the freedom of his people to express ideas in their own words; in so doing, he defended their very right to have ideas.
As I prepare for all the freedoms and responsibilities of adulthood, I remember these definitions of freedom I have inherited, and strive to make ones of my own— not only as the first generation of my family born in a new country, but also as an American youth at the birth of a new century. Sitting in the hall between classes, my friends and I discuss the faults of our school’s administration, the right to same-sex marriage, the justification for the Iraq War. We feel it is our right to know and evaluate our surroundings, to speak and have our ideas responded to.
I believe that freedom in the 21st century means the liberty of individuals, regardless of age, race, gender, or class, to express themselves in their own words, and to use those words to shape history. We celebrate it, and yet we never stop fighting for it. I am Korean-American, I am young, and I am free. I speak—not always articulate, not often right, but always in my own words. I speak, and I listen.