Finding Junie Kim includes the stories of Doha and Jinjoo, providing a historical fiction account of the Korean War, which began in 1950 after years of hostility and conflict when North Korea invaded South Korea. The war is most often referred to as the 625 War by South Koreans, signifying when the war began and establishing the importance of the dates that appear as the sub-titles of Book 2 and Book 4 of the novel. The war ended with an armistice on July 27, 1953. Rather than establishing an official peace treaty, the Korean Armistice Agreement created a Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) to separate North and South Korea, maintaining hostilities between Communist North and Democratic South Korea in a frozen conflict that Grandpa describes to Junie when he discusses his and Grandma’s decision to move to the US.

The Korean War follows the 35-year-long occupation of Japan, which concluded at the end of WWII when the United States and the Soviet Union divided Korea into two occupied zones. The Soviet Union controlled the northern zone, while America controlled the southern zone. The zones became sovereign states in 1948 due to Cold War tensions. North Korea, formally The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, was controlled by Kim II Sung, while South Korea, formally The Republic of Korea, was controlled by Syngman Rhee.