The Making of the First Korean President: Syngman Rhee's Quest for Independence, 1875-1948

Chapter 4. Early Life in Hawai‘i

64 cHAPTeR 4 Early Life in Hawai‘i Initial Activities in Hawai‘i, 1913–1915 Syngman rhee arrived in Hawai‘i in 1913. the islands served as the base for his nationalist activities for more than a quarter of a century, until 1939, six years before the liberation of Korea from Japanese colonial rule. Hawai‘i was where rhee first assumed leadership as an established Christian educator-politician unencumbered by the old personal associations and social rivalries of Korea. He landed in Hawai‘i as a major figure known not only to the 4,500 ethnic Koreans living there but also to the Caucasian elites because of his impressive academic credentials and his wellchronicled association with public figures in the continental United States.1 He proceeded to establish a reputation as an exemplary Christian educator from 1913 to 1915 by concentrating on the education of the second-generation Koreans on the islands. His initial involvement was through a mission school set up by the Hawaiian methodist Episcopal mission (HmEm) in 1906 (Fig. 4.1). He then cultivated friendly ties with prominent non-Korean Figure 4.1. Leaders of the Honolulu Korean Methodist Church in 1906. Seated second from the left in the front row is Rev. Min Ch’an-ho, the minister in charge of the church, and at the center is Rev. George H. Jones, who was engaged in missionary work in Korea at the time. Standing second from the left in the second row is Hyŏn Sun, an evangelist. Early Life in Hawai‘i 65 Figure 4.2. Syngman Rhee and those who welcomed him upon his arrival in Honolulu, February 3, 1913. Rhee is in the center, wearing a lei, and Pak Yong-man is on the far left. Christians by establishing the Korean branch of the YmCa in Honolulu. Finally, he took over the local political organization for Korean expatriates , the Korean National association of Hawaii (KNa-Hawaii), by seizing control from its incumbent leadership in may 1915. He thus became an uncontested leader among the Korean residents in Hawai‘i within two years of his arrival in Honolulu. rhee disembarked in Honolulu on February 3, after a weeklong voyage from San Francisco. Since Pak Yong-man had arrived three months earlier and used the time to lionize rhee through a local Korean newspaper , many Korean residents were present to meet him at the pier (Fig. 4.2).2 rhee detected a certain awkwardness in their reception, only to discover that his father had passed away two months earlier (December 5, 1912), the news of which had just reached Honolulu.3 rhee found himself suddenly without parents in the middle of the Pacific, unwittingly an unfilial son who had failed to be at his father’s deathbed. Before rhee ever set foot on the islands, many Koreans had found their way there as laborers. the territory of Hawai‘i (consisting of eight main islands, including Hawai‘i, maui, moloka ’i, O’ahu, and Kaua’i) had been a U.S. territory since 1898. Its famed sugarcane fields had attracted men and women from Japan, China, Portugal, and the Philippines, who worked with native Hawaiians and whites in a veritable racial mosaic. In the two and a half years from December 1902, when the Korean government first permitted emigration, to July 1905, when the Japanese put a stop to it, 7,226 Koreans went to the cane fields as laborers.4 Once in Hawai‘i, many Koreans discovered greater financial opportunities. When rhee arrived in 1913, there were just over 4,500 Koreans scattered among the islands.5 (the total number of Koreans on the mainland United States was between 1,100 and 1,200, with about 800 of them concentrated in California.)6 Some of the Koreans in Hawai‘i left the cane fields and worked their own farms. Others went to the cities to become peddlers or run 66 ChaPter 4 grocery stores, vegetable stalls, tailor shops, barbershops, and inns. the average daily wage of a farm worker at the time was 75 cents, or $18 a month, whereas an English-speaking Korean could make $30 to $40 a month as an employee of an american store, or $60 to $70 as a court interpreter.7 rhee settled down in a cottage in Pu‘unui, Honolulu provided by local Koreans (Fig. 4.3). there he concentrated on writing a book on the...