Stories Left Unsaid: Navigating Stigmatized Identity Disclosure and Storytelling Among North Korean Defector Mothers

North Korean defector mothers raising children in South Korea face challenges in balancing disclosure of their past with protecting their children from discrimination and stigma. Drawing on interviews with 22 North Korean defector mothers, we examine how children’s exposure to polarized media on North Korea acts as an unexpected, external force that shapes prejudice toward mothers’ backgrounds. This sociotechnical influence, combined with a lack of meaningful storytelling resources, complicates mothers’ disclosure decisions and constrains narrative agency over their own identities. We contribute to HCI by (1) advancing an empirically grounded understanding of how digital technologies mediate stigmatized identity disclosure in families, reshaping mother-child dynamics and mothers’ identity negotiations; (2) proposing design directions for storytelling technologies that support narrative agency, silence, and emotionally safe, anonymous sharing of disclosure strategies among mothers with stigmatized histories; (3) foregrounding the lived experiences and familial dynamics of a highly underrepresented population navigating digitally saturated ecosystems.