In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

11 Known as a Hermit Kingdom, Korea was the last country in Asia to open its door to the Western world. After repeated rejections of Western overtures to negotiate, in 1882 Korea finally signed a treaty of amity and trade with the United States, the first Western country with which Korea established diplomatic ties. Uncertain of the shifting balance of power surrounding the Korean Peninsula, Korea moved to join the family of nations haltingly and with great reluctance in the last decades of the nineteenth century. In the meantime, during the latter half of the nineteenth century, unbeknown to Korea, the Kingdom of Hawai‘i came increasingly under the influence of the white people as the sugar industry gained dominance in the Hawaiian economy, leading eventually to the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom by the whites in 1893 and the annexation of Hawai‘i by the United States in 1898. Constantly in need of cheap labor, the Hawai‘i sugar industry sought multiple sources of plantation workers and—after several years of unsuccessful efforts—won Korean governmental approval to allow its citizens to go abroad and work in Hawai‘i. Between 1903 and 1905, more than 7,200 Koreans immigrated to Hawai‘i to work on sugar plantations. This chapter presents an overview of these early Korean immigrants. arrival As early as 1896, the Hawai‘i sugar industry attempted to obtain Korean laborers . The task of securing Korean workers, however, was not easy, as there were strong oppositions and difficulties within Korea. It was not until the intervention of Horace N. Allen, the U.S. minister to Korea, on behalf of the Hawai‘i sugar industry that the Korean government finally gave its approval to Korean emigrations. A medical missionary-turned-diplomat stationed in Korea since 1884, Allen had won the confidence and trust of the ever-suspicious Emperor Kojong of Korea and successfully prevailed upon the Korean ruler to permit Koreans to work in Hawai‘i.1 In 1902, Emperor Kojong authorized the setting 1 The Early Korean Immigration An Overview Yông-ho Ch’oe 12 ch’oe up of an office called Suminwôn2 to issue passports to those who wished to travel abroad. As an agent of the Hawaii Sugar Planters Association (HSPA), David W. Deshler established the East-West Development Company (Tongsô Kaebal Hoesa) in Inch’ôn to recruit Korean laborers. The first shipload of Koreans left Inch’ôn harbor for Japan aboard a Japanese ship, Genkai-maru, on December 22, 1902. There are, however, conflicting reports on the exact number of the first group of Koreans who departed Inch’ôn on that date. Kim Wôn-yong, who wrote perhaps the most helpful history of Koreans in the United States, claims that 121 workers left Korea as the first group of Korean emigrants for Kobe, Japan, where they underwent a physical examination and that those who passed the physical (101 persons along with interpreters) boarded an American merchant ship, Gaelic, on a voyage to Hawai‘i.3 Unfortunately, Kim Wôn-yong gives no source for this information. Thereafter, many scholars accepted Kim Wônyong ’s number—that is, 121—as the first group of Korean emigrants.4 To add to the confusion, Hwangsông shinmun, a contemporary Korean newspaper published in Seoul, carried the following news article under the heading of “Hawaii Emigration” (Hawaii Imin) on December 27, 1902: “As previously reported, Deshler, an American stationed at Inch’ôn harbor, was engaged in recruiting Korean emigrants to Hawaii. Fifty-four Koreans who responded to [Deshler’s call for] recruitment left on 22nd of this month for Hawaii via Japan.” Because this news appeared only five days after the departure of the first Korean emigrant group, this number—fifty-four—would seem to be the most reliable. This, however, is not the case. It may have referred only to the number of adult male workers, not including women and children who accompanied them (as we will see below). The most credible information comes from a report made by a Japanese consul general stationed at Inch’ôn. On January 24, 1903, about one month after the departure of the first Korean emigrant group, Katö Motoshirö, the Japanese consul general at Inch’ôn, made a detailed report (seven pages long, handwritten ) to the Japanese foreign minister in Tokyo under the subject of “Koreans Going to Hawaii for Work” (Kankokujin no Hawaii dekasegi). In it, Katö wrote: “On December 22 last year...

Share