From the Land of Hibiscus

2. Korean Immigration to Hawai‘i and the Korean Protestant Church

41 With the dramatic growth of the sugar industry in Hawai‘i in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the Hawaii Sugar Planters Association (HSPA) was in constant need of laborers to work on the sugar plantations. Throughout most of its boom years, the HSPA relied heavily on cheap labor from East Asia. At first, the sugar planters imported Chinese laborers, and then Japanese. By the turn of the twentieth century, the Japanese workers began to dominate the labor market, allowing them to wage collective actions such as strikes to demand higher wages and better working conditions. To counter this domination by Japanese workers the HSPA looked to Korea for a new source of labor. The conduit between the HSPA and Korea was Horace N. Allen. A medical missionary of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, Allen first went to China, and from there, he was reassigned to Korea. Having arrived in Seoul in September 1884 as a doctor for the U.S. embassy, he was given an opportunity to give medical treatment to Min Yông-ik, who had received a serious injury in an assassination attempt in the abortive coup that took place in December 1884. Allen’s medical skills saved Min’s life and thus won the deep gratitude of the Korean royal family, as Min Yông-ik was not an ordinary person: he was a favorite nephew of Queen Min. With the support of the royal family, Allen, in April 1885, opened the first Western medical hospital in Korea. In 1887, when Korea dispatched its first permanent diplomatic envoy to the United States, he accompanied the Korean mission as an escort. In 1897, he was appointed the American minister to Korea stationed in Seoul. By this time, Allen had won the confidence of Emperor Kojong and had become one of the most trusted advisors of the Korean ruler. In 1901, when he returned to the United States on leave, he was approached by William G. Irwin, an HSPA agent, who pleaded for Allen’s assistance in securing Korean laborers for Hawai‘i sugar plantations. Allen consented to this request. With a poor harvest, Korea was going through economic hardship in 1901. Allen suggested to the emperor that one possible way out of this difficulty was 2 Korean Immigration to Hawai‘i and the Korean Protestant Church Mahn-Yol Yi 42 yi to allow Koreans to immigrate to Hawai‘i. Besides, these Koreans might acquire new knowledge of Western civilization that would be of great use to Korea, Allen explained. Persuaded by Allen, Emperor Kojong appointed Min Yônghwan as the president of a new office called Suminwôn1 to handle all emigration matters. At the same time, David W. Deshler, a fellow Ohioan who became Allen’s protégé in Korea, became responsible for recruiting Korean laborers. For this purpose, Deshler set up the East-West Development Company in Korea and also established a bank, which came to be known as the Deshler Bank. In the joint name of the Suminwôn and the East-West Development Company , a public recruiting announcement was circulated. It pointed to Hawai‘i’s good weather and said that recruits would work ten hours a day with a holiday on Sundays and that the monthly wages would be $15. The announcement was posted in many parts of the country, including Seoul, Pusan, Inch’ôn, Wônsan, and many other harbor towns. As a result, a group of men and women with children left Inch’ôn on December 22, 1902. At Kobe, Japan, they underwent further physical examinations, and 102 persons of this group finally reached Honolulu on January 13, 1903. Thereafter, 7,226 Koreans immigrated to Hawai‘i by the end of 1905,2 when Japanese interference stopped further emigration. 3 Public Notice posted in Korea to recruit laborers for Hawai‘i sugar plantations. korean protestant church 43 christians among emigrants The announcement recruiting laborers for Hawai‘i was at first met with skeptical responses from the general public in Korea, and not many Koreans applied initially. There was no precedent for official migration of Koreans abroad, and few had accurate information about foreign countries and the proper procedures for applying. The only information available was the announcement of the EastWest Development Company, which many learned about through indirect dissemination of information. It was also uncertain whether one could trust either the...