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CHAPTER FIVE “A PEOPLE WITHOUT A COUNTRY” KOREAN REFUGEE STUDENTS AND PICTURE BRIDES

ON JULY 9, 1913, six Korean young men, claiming to be students, arrived on the Mongolia from Shanghai and were taken to Angel Island for inspection. They had come without passports or student documents. Japan had annexed Korea in 1910, but they all refused to acknowledge Japan’s sovereignty over Korea. When asked by Inspector William Chadney why he was not a subject of Japan, being a native of Korea, twenty-two-year-old Cho Hin answered, “I left Korea [for China] before Japan annexed Korea, and so, I am not a subject of Japan.” The immigrant inspector was not satisfled with his answer. “Of what country are you a subject? Are you a man without a country?” Cho had to agree, “I am now a man without a country.” Complicating matters, all six men were found to have hookworm, for which they were debarred from entering the country. They would spend a week in the hospital and three more weeks in the same barracks as the Japanese and South Asian men while awaiting the outcome of their appeals. With the help of the Korean National Association (KNA), which was founded in 1909 to support national independence and protect the interests of Koreans overseas, the men were admitted on August 5, 1913. They became the first test case of U.S. immigration policy toward Korean refugee students.1

Another 1,000 Koreans would seek admission through the port of San Francisco during the next three decades—mostly young men claiming to be students, but also picture brides, wives, and children of alien residents. Fleeing a harsh life under Japanese colonial rule, they were the lucky ones to have found a way to America. To circumvent the Japanese government’s ban on Korean emigration, they had had to steal across the northern Korean border into Manchuria, make their way to Shanghai under disguise to avoid detection by the Japanese police, and from there, wait to book passage on an American steamer going to San Francisco. Upon reaching their destination, they had to find a way to pass the test of both the Asian exclusion and the general immigration laws before they could be admitted into the country. The difficult journey and the many obstacles thrown in their way by both the Japanese and the U.S. governments explain why so few Koreans immigrated to America between 1910 and 1940. Yet despite their small numbers, the Korean experience at Angel Island is worth examining

in depth. It offers us a unique view of how “a people without a country,” with the support of a strong organization like the KNA, found a way to transcend American policies of racial exclusion.2 For a short period of time, Korean immigrants at Angel Island were treated with more leniency than the other Asian groups, Japanese included. As Woo Myong-won, a Korean picture bride who came in 1914, attested, “I was able to get ashore without immigration papers because the United States government knew of the harsh Japanese rule, and we were permitted off [the ship] as students. They were especially good to Koreans.”3 Although the Japanese consulate complained repeatedly that Koreans without Japanese passports should not be allowed into the country, immigration officials were directed by their superiors in Washington, D.C., to give Korean applicants “every proper consideration” and to admit them as long as

Lee, Erika, and Judy Yung. Angel Island : Immigrant Gateway to America, Oxford University Press USA - OSO, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/berkeley-ebooks/detail.action?docID=578792. Created from berkeley-ebooks on 2019-07-08 20:21:39.

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they met the general provisions of the immigration laws.4 This leniency toward Korean immigrants was influenced by the perception that their status as students and housewives did not pose a threat to American labor and by the State Department’s willingness to deal with the KNA instead of Japan over matters of concern to Koreans in America.

Forced to Leave the Homeland Known as the Hermit Kingdom, the Korean peninsula—located at the strategic crossroads of China, Japan, and Russia—had been in isolation for over two and a half centuries after repeated invasions from its neighbors. In 1876 Japan succeeded in forcing Korea to sign the Treaty of Kanghwa, opening three seaports to trade, ending Chinese suzerainty over Korea, and granting Japan extraterritorial rights to exploit the country’s rich natural resources. Other Western nations, including the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Russia, Italy, and France, soon followed suit. A period of international rivalry for control of Korea ensued, with Japan claiming victory after it defeated China in the Sino-Japanese War of 1895 and Russia in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905. As a rising Asian world power, Japan was able to declare Korea its protectorate in 1905 and formally annexed it in 1910. Although the United States had signed the Treaty of Amity and Commerce with Korea in 1882, promising to protect Korea against hostilities from another nation, it failed to do so. That was because President Theodore Roosevelt had signed the secret Taft-Katsura Treaty with Japan in 1905, whereby America would recognize Japanese hegemony over Korea in exchange for Japan’s noninterference in U.S. affairs in the Philippines.5

Life for the Korean people deteriorated rapidly after Korea became a semi-colony of Japan and the West and after the Yi Dynasty succumbed to corruption and chaos. The penetration of foreign capitalism linked Korean farmers to the international market and a cash economy, thereby causing the agricultural economy and native handicraft industries to collapse. Laden with heavy taxes, many Korean farmers were forced off their lands. Unemployment and starvation mounted as a cholera epidemic followed by a drought, flood, and locust plague each took its toll in 1901–02. It was at this juncture that Hawaii’s sugar planters, facing a labor shortage and wanting to counteract the militancy of Japanese workers, took advantage of the 1882 Treaty and began recruiting laborers from Korea through the assistance of U.S. foreign minister Horace Allen and businessman David Deshler. Convinced by Allen that allowing Koreans to emigrate to Hawaii would alleviate poverty and starvation in Korea and improve relations between Korea and the United States, King Kojong signed an edict to establish the Department of Emigration and gave Deshler permission to recruit and assist “free laborers” interested in going to Hawaii. It was his bank that advanced the necessary travel funds and his ships that transported the workers from Korea to Japan for passage to Hawaii. Despite the enticement of good wages—fifteen dollars a month, five times what a laborer in

Korea earned at the time—free housing, medical care, and schooling for the children, there were few takers from a population unaccustomed to traveling far from home. But by then, Christianity had taken a foothold in Korea, and American missionaries were able to persuade their converts to go to Hawaii—a Christian land, they were told, where they would be free of political and religious persecution and where they could better their condition. Consequently,

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40 percent of the Korean emigrants to Hawaii were Christians. Others signed on out of economic desperation. Kim Sung-jin, who, along with her family, was recruited to Hawaii in 1905, recalled, “There was a famine and people all around were desperate to get where we could find something to eat or find a job so we could buy food to eat.” She added emphatically, “There was no way we could have survived in Korea.”6 From December 1902 to November 1905, when Japan successfully pressured the Korean

government to ban emigration, some 7,400 farmers, laborers, artisans, and former soldiers from seaports and towns all over Korea left for Honolulu. Another 1,000 Korean emigrants were duped by a British agent into signing four-year contracts that sent them to Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, where they were put to hard labor on the spiny henequen plantations.7 Word got back to Korea that they were being treated like slaves and worked to death. According to one report, the poor immigrants were spending the day in the thorny fields, sweating under the burning sun and cracking whips of Mexican foremen, and the nights nursing their thorn-pricked wounds in the mud huts. “Often they envied the life of the dogs in the house of plantation owners. . . . Those who were unable to work for a prolonged period, regardless of sickness from malnutrition or snake bites in the hut, would be abandoned in the wilderness and left to their own fate.”8 This tragic news gave the Korean government further cause to terminate all emigration. Working and living conditions on the Hawaiian plantations were not optimal either. The free

housing turned out to be dilapidated shacks without running water in overcrowded camps. The long hours and backbreaking work of cutting cane in a subtropical climate were more than most Korean laborers could bear. Stories were told of how young boys, women, and men, “with their fair hands blistered, faces and arms torn and scratched by the cane leaf stickers would sit between rows of cane and weep like children.”9 Many left plantation work within a year or two to work in the canneries, to grow rice and coffee, or to start small businesses like laundries, retail shops, and boardinghouses in the cities. At least 1,000 Koreans returned to Korea, while another 2,000 moved to the U.S. mainland for better-paying jobs in mining, railroad construction, and farming. But that window of opportunity was short-lived. On March 14, 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt issued Executive Order 589, which prohibited Japanese and Korean laborers holding passports for Hawaii, Mexico, and Canada from entering the continental United States.10 The executive order would later stop the Korean “slaves” in Mexico from getting to Hawaii via the port of San Francisco. After Japan annexed Korea in 1910, new policies were instituted to facilitate Japanese land

purchases and Japanese import-export trade as increased numbers of Japanese farmers and businessmen began settling in Korea. In an effort to subjugate the Korean people and extinguish any seeds of rebellion, the new administration also disbanded the Korean Army, made Japanese the official language in the schools, shut down newspapers, prohibited public assemblies, and issued passports to only a select few. An essay written by a refugee student and published in Sinhan Minbo (New Korea newspaper) explained how political repression, cultural oppression, and economic duress in Korea had driven many of them to leave their beloved homeland:

To the Incoming Students: Are We Crazy to Come Here? Lee, Erika, and Judy Yung. Angel Island : Immigrant Gateway to America, Oxford University Press USA - OSO, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/berkeley-ebooks/detail.action?docID=578792. Created from berkeley-ebooks on 2019-07-08 20:21:39.

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Remember why we could not study in our homeland? It was because the Japanese government closed all the private schools and forced all the public schools to teach in Japanese and about the glory of Japan. Why did we stop teaching in our homeland? It was because the Japanese principals humiliated and degraded all Korean teachers. Why did we give up our government positions? It was because we could not stand the fact that Japanese held all the high positions and we were forced to pander to them. Why couldn’t we conduct business in the homeland? It was because the enemy held all the money and power and made it impossible for us to open businesses. Why couldn’t we farm? It was because we could not produce enough to make a living. No, we are not crazy for leaving our homeland and crossing the Pacific Ocean to be free of our Japanese enemy. So let us not live a crazy life but study hard and uphold the honor of being Korean students.11

Despite the Japanese clampdown on Korean emigration, between 1910 and 1918, 541 refugee students and 115 picture brides fled their homeland for America by way of Manchuria, Shanghai, or Europe. Approximately 80 percent arrived at the port of San Francisco without passports. They claimed that they were not Japanese subjects because they had left Korea before annexation and were thus exempted from the passport requirement. Moreover, all insisted they were not of the laboring class in order to bypass President Roosevelt’s executive order and Rule 11, which was issued on February 24, 1913, to prohibit alien laborers holding passports to other countries from entering the continental United States when deemed detrimental to labor conditions therein.12 Their average length of stay at Angel Island was one week. Less than 5 percent of the Korean applicants were excluded and deported.13 Some, like Whang Sa Sun and his wife Chang Tai Sun, who arrived on April 22, 1913, did not even have to go to Angel Island. Whang Sa Sun was born in Uiju, Pyongan Province (North Korea) in 1885, the sixth of eight

children. He attended missionary schools and graduated from Soongsil College. Whang was working as a high school teacher when he got involved in the national independence movement. He and his wife were both members of the anti-Japanese Sinminhoe (New People’s Society) and narrowly escaped capture and torture by the Japanese police before fleeing to Manchuria. As Whang told his granddaughter Gail sixty years later, the couple had to disguise themselves as Russian refugees and cross the half-frozen Yalu River in the dead of winter to get out of the country. From Manchuria they made their way by train to Shanghai, where they boarded the Mongolia for America. This time they wore Chinese clothes and pretended to be Chinese from Pokgun Province whenever they were stopped by the Japanese secret police. The steamship made three stops in Japan and one in Honolulu before the Whangs finally landed in San Francisco.14

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Chang Tai Sun (left) and Whang Sa Sun with their children Elizabeth and Paul in 1917. (Courtesy of Gail Whang Desmond.)

“When I left Korea, I felt like a free man,” Whang told his granddaughter. “At that time the Japanese military government persecuted the people, especially the young students and took them to jail. I wanted to come to America, a free country. Also, my brother was living in America.” His brother Whang Sa Yong had immigrated to Hawaii in 1904 as a student and was active in the Korean independence movement there. He helped to prepare the way for his brother and sister-inlaw’s admittance to the United States by asking David Lee, KNA president, to vouch for them. According to the ship’s passenger list, the couple was traveling second class and coming as a “clergyman” and “housewife.” Those reasons, combined with Lee’s sponsorship, were probably why they were landed from the ship instead of Angel Island. The couple settled in San Francisco, where they had three children and became deeply

involved in the Korean Methodist Church and the Korean National Association. “During that period,” Whang explained, “the American people didn’t respect the Asian people. I wanted some postal or factory work, but they wouldn’t give it to me.” Whang ended up opening a tailoring and cleaning shop on the outskirts of Chinatown to supplement his meager salary as a preacher. He was able to rent the store only by telling the white landlord that he was half- Russian. In 1928, he became the minister of the Korean Methodist Church, where he served until he retired in 1942. Although Whang Sa Sun was not detained on Angel Island himself, he often made trips there to testify on behalf of other immigrants. He assisted hundreds of students and political refugees with housing and job referrals, and he worked tirelessly to raise funds for the Korean Provisional Government and Army in Shanghai. Twice a widower, Whang died in 1974 at the age of eighty-nine. “He was a man of integrity and high ideals,” wrote historian Bong Youn Choy. “He gave no attention to his own personal gain or glory, but always concerned himself with the welfare and interests of others.”15

The Korean National Association By the time the Angel Island Immigration Station opened for business in 1910, there were at least 1,000 Koreans residing in the continental United States.16 A handful had come directly from Korea as students, ginseng merchants, and political exiles in the late nineteenth century. The majority were plantation workers who had remigrated from Hawaii to California and the western states, taking whatever jobs they could find on the railroads, in the canneries and mines, and on farms. Lumped with the Chinese and Japanese, Koreans were subjected to the same kinds of racial taunting, hostilities, and discrimination in the job market, housing, education, and public facilities. They could not own land, marry whites, or become naturalized U.S. citizens. In defense, Korean immigrants employed a strategy of racial accommodation. They walked away from jobs and situations where they were unwanted, worked harder to prove themselves when hired, and acculturated to Western ways. It was not long before they found their economic niche as tenant farmers growing rice, sugar beets, fruits, and vegetables, or as small shopkeepers in the cities.17

Although a small and scattered population, Koreans formed a cohesive community, united in

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their goals of mutual aid and national independence through the Korean churches, the Korean National Association, and by extension, KNA’s weekly newspaper Sinhan Minbo. According to historian Hyung June Moon, it was because of their lonely existence in a hostile land, combined with the political situation in their homeland, that a strong bond of ethnic solidarity and mutual respect developed in the Korean community. “Each looked upon another Korean as a brother or a sister and the esprit de corps was admirable; ‘all for one, and one for all’ seemed to be the slogan.” This meant not only sticking up for one another but also making sure that no one’s behavior reflected poorly on the group’s reputation as hardworking, law-abiding “puritans.”18 This strong sense of Korean solidarity was transnational in nature and practice. The KNA,

with regional headquarters in the U.S. mainland, Hawaii, Siberia, and Manchuria, provided the structure and leadership to mobilize support for national independence and to aid all Koreans living overseas. In the absence of a home government or consulate to protect them, the Korean community relied on the KNA to speak for them, defend their rights, and facilitate their entry into the United States. This was how the KNA got involved in the first test case of Korean transients on Angel Island. It all started when the organization heard about the plight of the 1,000 Korean “slaves” in Yucatan, Mexico, who, having completed their four-year contracts, were now free but destitute and caught in the middle of the Mexican revolution. The KNA dispatched two representatives, Whang Sa Yong and Pang Wha Joong, to investigate and set up a relief program and KNA chapter there. Concluding that Hawaii offered them the best chance for survival, the organization got the Hawaiian Sugar Plantation Association to guarantee the Koreans jobs, raised over $9,000 to cover their travel expenses, and was in the process of securing entry permits for them from the U.S. government when four Korean leaders in Mexico jumped the gun and decided to board a ship in Manzanillo and head for Hawaii.19 When the ship stopped in San Francisco en route to Honolulu on September 19, 1911, the

four men were, according to their legal counsel, “arrested on board the steamship ‘City of Panama’ and forcibly detained” on Angel Island. Appearing before the Board of Special Inquiry (BSI) chaired by Inspector Frank Ainsworth, all four showed passports issued by the Korean government in 1906 for business and traveling purposes in Mexico. They also held ship tickets that indicated Honolulu as their final destination. Upon questioning, they claimed they had never worked as laborers in Mexico and that they were going to Honolulu to explore business prospects. However, they had only $75 among the four of them and no proof for their claims of additional financial resources in Mexico. The BSI did not take long to decide against granting them transit privileges according to Executive Order 589. Moreover, the board believed that the applicants had limited funds and were likely to become public charges (LPC) if admitted to the United States. Commissioner of Immigration Samuel Backus concurred with the board’s decision to deport them directly to Mexico, adding that the four men represented the advance guard of the Korean colony in Mexico, and if admitted, their cases would set a precedent whereby other Japanese and Korean laborers in Mexico would likewise seek admission to the United States.20 The Korean National Association assisted with the appeal process. In a letter addressed to

the secretary of commerce and labor, legal representative Chauncey St. John argued that his

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clients were young, vigorous men capable of earning a living, that they had expended a great deal of money on the trip but still had savings in Mexico, and that they were not seeking to enter the United States but to reach the Hawaiian Islands. “The order to deport them to Mexico direct is an exhibition of unscrupulous tyranny,” he concluded. The appeal was denied and the four men were deported on November 13, 1911. They had been detained on Angel Island for close to two months. Their failed attempt to pass through San Francisco en route to Hawaii put an end to KNA’s plans to rescue the rest of the Korean “slaves” in Mexico. Funds collected for their passage to Hawaii were all returned to the donors. It was a hard lesson for the young organization to bear, but one that they learned well as they devised new strategies to help other Korean immigrants gain entry. Leading the way was David Lee, who became KNA’s president in 1913. Patriot, minister, interpreter, editor, community leader—these were the many roles that

David Dae Wei Lee juggled and brought into play as he helped hundreds of Korean refugee students fleeing Japanese persecution make it through the immigration gateway and beyond. Born in Kang Suh, near the northern province of Pyongan, in 1878, Lee studied the Chinese classics and received his religious training at Soongsil College before immigrating to the United States as a student in 1903. In 1913, he became the first Korean to graduate from the University of California, Berkeley, and from the San Francisco Theological Seminary in 1918. He was simultaneously pastor of the Korean Methodist Church (1911–1928), port missionary and interpreter at the Angel Island Immigration Station (1913–1918), president of the Korean National Association (1913–15, 1917–19), and editor of the Sinhan Minbo. In these roles, Lee is credited with inventing the Korean typesetting machine, starting the Korean language school at his church, keeping nationalism alive in the Korean American community, and resolving immigration and political issues as they arose. Immigration officials at the Angel Island station came to regard him as a man of integrity and honor and to rely on his opinion and assurances to help them reach decisions on the Korean applicants. In case after case, he vouched for the immigrants’ status as students with financial resources, guaranteed that they would not become public charges, paid for their medical treatment, or posted bonds to secure their release.21

David Dae Wei Lee in 1915. Lee devoted his life to serving his faith, his country, and the Korean American community at a great cost to his health and family. He died of exhaustion and tuberculosis in 1928 at the age of fifty, leaving his wife and four children in poverty. In 1995, in recognition of his contributions to the nationalist cause, the Korean government awarded him the Independence Medal. Ten years later, his remains were exhumed and reburied in the National Cemetery for Patriots in Dae Jun, Korea. (Courtesy of San Francisco Korean United Methodist Church.)

Since its founding in 1909, the Korean National Association had been working on regaining Lee, Erika, and Judy Yung. Angel Island : Immigrant Gateway to America, Oxford University Press USA - OSO, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/berkeley-ebooks/detail.action?docID=578792. Created from berkeley-ebooks on 2019-07-08 20:21:39.

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national independence while asserting their political identity as Koreans in America, and not Japanese subjects. In this regard they knew it was important that they secure diplomatic recognition from the United States. Immediately after Japan annexed Korea, the organization passed a resolution to declare the annexation null and void. The KNA also sent a message to all nations that had diplomatic relations with Korea, requesting that “In all diplomatic relations, the Korean National Association shall represent Koreans, and in all public events the national flag shall be displayed and the national anthem be sung as before.” Presumably, the United States and Great Britain acknowledged receipt of the message but did not comment.22 Then on June 25, 1913, attacks on Koreans in Hemet, California, presented the organization with the golden opportunity they had been seeking. It all started when eleven Korean farm workers in Riverside, California, were recruited to

Hemet by a white rancher to help harvest a bumper crop of apricots. Prior to their arrival, town citizens had already demonstrated their anti-Japanese feelings in urging the California state legislature to pass the Alien Land Law. When the Koreans arrived in Hemet on the train at midnight, they were confronted by a hostile crowd of unemployed white workers, who mistaking them for Japanese laborers, threatened them with physical violence if they did not immediately “beat it.” The Korean workers boarded the next train out of there. Hearing of the expulsion and considering Koreans to be Japanese subjects, Japanese Ambassador Sutemi Chinda immediately ordered an investigation. The Koreans were more upset by the Japanese Embassy’s interference in their affairs than they were by the racial hostilities of the white workers. Meanwhile, Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, who was trying to mollify Japan’s anger over the Alien Land Law, was fearful that the Hemet incident might further damage U.S.-Japan relations if not handled properly. He too ordered an investigation. Soon after, the Korean laborers, on their own, settled the indemnity matter with the white rancher to their satisfaction. But the KNA, seeing an opportunity to remove Koreans from Japanese control by establishing their own diplomatic identity with the State Department, gave David Lee the go-ahead to send the following telegram:

To the Honorable William Jennings Bryan, Secretary of State:

I have the honor to inform you of the recent expulsion of Korean laborers from Hemet, California, and to address you concerning the Japanese Consulate General’s demand for indemnity. We, the Koreans in America, are not Japanese subjects, for we left Korea before the annexation of Korea by Japan, and we will never submit to her as long as the sun remains in the heavens.

The intervention of the Japanese Consulate-General in Korean matters is illegal, so I have the honor of requesting you to discontinue the discussion of this case with the Japanese government representatives. If there is any financial question between the Koreans and the persons who expelled our laborers, we will settle it without Japanese interference.23

Upon receiving the telegram, Secretary of State Bryan, who was opposed to Japanese colonial rule in Korea, saw a solution to his problem with Japan. On July 2, he announced to

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the Associated Press that the Koreans in America were not Japanese subjects and “therefore, United States official functions should, henceforth, deal directly with the Korean National Association on all matters concerning Koreans.” By doing so, he was able to avoid dealing with Japan over the Hemet affair in addition to the Alien Land Law. As far as the Korean National Association was concerned, Bryan’s public announcement made them the unofficial diplomatic representative of all Koreans in America. It was exactly the authority they needed to influence decisions on political and immigration matters of concern to the Korean community.24

Refugee Students and Freedom Fighters Two weeks after the Hemet incident, the six Korean young men arrived on the Mongolia from Shanghai without passports and with limited funds. According to the Sinhan Minbo, four of them were freedom fighters who had been arrested by the Japanese police and tortured before they made their escape.25 They were immediately taken to Angel Island for further investigation. Three days later, they were called before a Board of Special Inquiry by Inspector Frank Ainsworth with David Lee serving as the interpreter. Each applicant was asked a series of questions to determine their eligibility for admission. Seemingly aware of the consequences of their responses, they each gave similar answers to that of fellow applicant Yin Chi Ham: Q. Of what country are you a citizen? A. Korea. Q. Are you a subject of the Emperor of Japan? A. No. I left Korea five years ago and stayed in China for five years, and never went back to Korea since the Japanese annexation of Korea.

Q. What is your father’s occupation? A. My father established a big farm in China—more than ten acres. And he is in charge of a Korean school there.

Q. What income does he derive from this ranch? A. Seven thousand dollars gold yearly income generally.

Q. Have you any documentary evidence to show that you have been studying up to the time you left China to come to the United States? A. I left my documents at my home in China, because I passed through Japanese ports and was afraid they would be seized by the Japanese authorities.

Q. Why did you not secure a passport before leaving China to come to the United States? A. I can tell you the truth. It is impossible for a Korean student to get a passport anywhere. The Japanese government would never grant a passport to a Korean, so I never asked for it.

Q. What school will you enter in the United States? A. I don’t know, but when I land in San Francisco, I will follow the advice of my friends and attend a certain medical school.

Q. Who will support you in the United States while attending school? A. My father will send me money within a few weeks.26

The board decided to exclude all six applicants for having hookworm and in the case of Cho Hin, who came with the least money—$30, for being LPC. With the help of David Lee, they

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appealed the decisions and applied for hospital treatment. Commissioner Samuel Backus was at a loss as to whether to grant them treatment or not since they had come without passports and had provided no evidence that they had the financial resources to pursue an education in America. He wrote the commissioner-general of immigration in Washington, D.C., for instructions. Meanwhile, David Lee, in his capacity as KNA president, wrote a letter of appeal to the

secretary of labor on behalf of the students, asking that they be granted medical treatment. He assured the secretary that the students were sons of wealthy parents who were capable of supporting their education in America. He also made a point of saying that the students were neither Japanese nor Chinese, but Korean. As proof, Lee enclosed a newspaper article with the headline, “Hemet’s Korean Incident Closed by Bryan’s Order: Secretary Is Informed Fruit Pickers Expelled from California Town Were Not Subjects of Japan.” It was his way of reminding the immigration authorities that Koreans who left their native land before annexation should not be regarded as subjects of Japan, and thus should not be required to carry Japanese passports. Unbeknown to Backus or Lee, American Consul General Amos Weder had written a letter to

the secretary of state on February 22, 1913, regarding these same Korean students who had applied for passports at his office. He confirmed their student status and recommended that they be given special consideration:

These young men are of attractive personality, unquestionably of the student class; some have means to support themselves while prosecuting their studies, others have friends who vouch for their support, including foreigners in the United States; and finally, they have an ardent desire to go to the land which they regard as friendly to them; they feel strongly against Japan. Their going would be to the advantage of the United States as well as fulfill their own ambitions.27

The American consulate had been unable to grant these students passports because they were legally not Chinese, but Japanese subjects, and were thus required to get their passports from the Japanese consulate. But as he pointed out in his letter, the Japanese foreign office had repeatedly refused to issue passports to Koreans. He concluded his letter by asking “if their alliance to Japan is such that no way remains for them to secure admission to the United States except by consent of the Tokyo foreign office, which is denied?” The State Department referred the question to the Department of Labor. In response,

Secretary of Labor William Wilson took the following position:

It is true, of course, that if these Koreans should come to a port of the United States from China and not present a passport, the provisions of the President’s proclamation of March 14, 1907, and of rule 11 of the immigration rules would not technically apply to them, and probably the United States immigration officials would be obliged to admit them if it were shown that they were students and that in every respect they were admissible under the general provisions of the law. But, in this Department’s judgment, it would not be in the interest of good administration (and probably you might think it objectionable from an

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international point of view) to offer the best encouragement to subjects of Japan living abroad to migrate to this country without subjecting themselves to the regulations regarding immigration that the Japanese Government has undertaken to enforce partly at the request of the United States Government.28

Both the secretary of labor and the commissioner-general of immigration decided to authorize hospital treatment for the six refugee students, and a second hearing was held in which David Lee as KNA president and George McCune, previously president of the Presbyterian College of Korea, were allowed to testify. Lee offered to cover the cost of their medical treatment as well as guarantee their stay in the United States while McCune confirmed that all of the applicants were Christians and students from well-to-do families. He also offered to sponsor Chung In Kooa, one of the students he knew well. In the end, although the students could not provide any documentary proof of their student and financial status, they were all admitted to the country a month after their arrival. At the end of that fiscal year, Commissioner-General of Immigration Anthony Caminetti, a

strong opponent of Asian immigration, noted the new “movement of Koreans to the United States” in his annual report. There had been sixty-seven Korean applicants that year as compared to twelve the previous year, he wrote. Thirty-seven were students who came on American vessels from Shanghai. None would admit to the status of laborer and most stated they had left Korea before annexation and therefore were not subjects of Japan. “The movement has not reached a serious volume at present, but inquiries now coming to us would indicate that it may soon become so large as to require the bureau’s special attention,” he warned.29 The ease with which Koreans were being admitted through the port of San Francisco

annoyed the Japanese government, and the Japanese consul general in Shanghai began to apply pressure on the United States to abide by the Gentlemen’s Agreement—in essence, to stop admitting Koreans without Japanese passports. According to a series of letters from the American consul in Shanghai to the secretary of state, Japanese officials were aware that, on average, twenty Koreans per month were fleeing to America by way of China, often with the help of American missionaries in Korea and China. To avoid detection by the Japanese secret police, the Koreans were known to disguise themselves as Chinese citizens and book passage only on American vessels. As pointed out in one letter, the Japanese resented the fact that Koreans “inimical to the Japanese government” could enter the United States so easily while Japanese citizens were debarred.30 In response to the objections raised by the Japanese consul general, Assistant Secretary of

Labor Louis F. Post sided with the Korean students. In his letter to the secretary of state, he wrote:

Koreans of the student class cannot be excluded from the United States merely because they have managed to leave Korea without obtaining passports from the Japanese government. The Immigration Service is doing all that it can, within the scope of the law and regulations, to prevent these practices; but when Koreans applying for admission are clearly entitled under the law to land at a United States port, of course no other action can

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be taken than to admit them.31

A liberal at heart, Post served as assistant secretary of labor from 1913 to 1921. He made his views on immigration known at a meeting of the American Political Science Association in 1915. He believed in the ideals of human freedom and equality irrespective of race or nationality, distrusted the administrative power of the Immigration Bureau, and disapproved of restrictive immigration policies.32

But as Koreans without passports continued to arrive from Shanghai and pressure from the Japanese government mounted, the Bureau of Immigration chose to differ with Post and began closing the gate on Korean immigration. On October 21, 1914, Acting Commissioner- General F. H. Larned issued a directive to the ports of Seattle, San Francisco, and Honolulu, calling their attention to the large numbers of Koreans who were embarking for the United States in Shanghai on American vessels to evade the passport requirements of the Japanese government. “In the interest of good administration,” he told them, “this evasion of the regulations should be discouraged to the fullest extent possible, and the Bureau desires that such applicants shall be carefully inspected under the Immigration Act [of 1907] in every instance.”33 Immigrant inspectors at the Angel Island station began to get tough with the newly arrived

Korean students, demanding that they provide documentary evidence of their student status and financial situation. In the case of eight refugee students who arrived on August 21, 1914, from Shanghai on the Korea, each carrying exactly $50, they were all debarred as LPC for lacking any proof of their student status and any relatives in America to assist them. Lee pleaded with Commissioner Backus to admit them with KNA’s guarantee, since they had arrived under the same circumstances as previous Korean students who had been allowed to land. “I am satisfled with the Board’s decision to no longer admit people with such conditions,” he wrote, “but they must give me time to prevent other students from leaving Shanghai for America unless they are well fitted to land.” At the rehearing, the board badgered Lee with questions about the Korean National Association’s financial situation after he agreed to post $500 bonds for each of the students. But in the end, all of the students were admitted, having spent only five days in detention.34 True to his word, Lee cabled Shanghai and ran an article in the Sinhan Minbo, which in part

said:

We hope incoming students will read and follow the guidelines written by the KNA. The fact that the San Francisco Immigration Station admitted more than 180 fellow Koreans in the past two years indicates that Koreans are being treated fairly. There are no words that can comfort those students who come to this country with high hopes and then are forced to return home without ever stepping foot on the hills of the Golden Gate. Please prepare well to meet all the requirements before the trip.35

From then on, KNA guidelines for incoming students and picture brides were published regularly in the Sinhan Minbo, specifying which documents and how much money they needed to bring. They also offered practical advice as to what to avoid. “For those students coming from China, please land in San Francisco rather than New York, where landing presents many

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problems to Koreans.”36

There is no doubt that the Korean National Association was heavily involved in helping refugee students immigrate to the United States from Shanghai. The American consul in Shanghai reported in September of 1915 that a local agent of an American steamship company told him David Lee often ordered transportation for the Korean passengers. In addition, he said, Lee provided them with $50 to meet immigration requirements when they landed in San Francisco.37 These charges were confirmed on November 6, 1916, when Immigrant Inspector Jackson Milligan caught a Hawaii KNA courier passing envelopes of money addressed to four Korean students aboard the Ecuador, which had stopped in Honolulu on its way to San Francisco. Upon investigation, all four students insisted that their relatives had sent them the money through the KNA, but Inspector Milligan saw the delivery of funds as proof of previous charges made by Hawaiian Korean interpreter John Woo, that KNA was providing “show money” to incoming Korean immigrants. In his memorandum to the inspector in Honolulu, Milligan also wrote, “Interpreter Woo reports that it is common knowledge among the Koreans here that the official Korean interpreter at San Francisco receives a salary from the Korean National Association as well as from the Immigration Service for his work, and that he tells only so much in regard to these boys as is necessary in connection with their admission.”38 These charges would later damage the chances of the twenty-five Korean students from entering the country as well as tarnish the reputations of David Lee and the KNA. According to the immigration case files of the Ecuador students, we know that Lee was not

allowed to serve as their interpreter but was replaced by C. D. Morris, who had been a missionary in Korea. All of the applicants had come without passports and documents to prove their student status. In an attempt to assess their educational backgrounds, the board tested their math, English, and knowledge of history and geography. One failed the math test, another failed the history test, and only two of the students could speak English. Three students had no money at all, claiming that they had spent it all in Shanghai while waiting to secure passage on an American ship. They and the four students who had been given money by the KNA in Honolulu were grilled about their financial situation. Relatives and family friends who stepped forward to sponsor them, some apparently at the request of the Korean National Association, were cross-examined about their finances and relationship to the applicants. When David Lee appeared as a witness and sponsor on behalf of Pyun Pong Chick, whose father he knew well, Lee was questioned about his overall income and family expenses, and was told, “How will you support a wife, four children and yourself, and care for this boy, from the salary of $62.50 a month, at the present time when the cost of living is so high?” Following that remark, he was asked if he knew whether the KNA was funneling money to incoming Korean students at the port of Honolulu. Lee denied knowing anything about it. Commissioner Edward White, who had previously defended Lee as a man of integrity and honor, declined to do so this time.39 Except for Kiel In Young, who had three strong letters of recommendation and was admitted

twelve days after his arrival, the other ten students were excluded and ordered deported. Nine of them were deemed LPC on the grounds that they had limited funds, no relatives or credible sponsors in the United States to assist them, and no profession or trade by which to earn a living if it became necessary. Lee Hong Nai, whose “hands show signs of labor,” was

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excluded as a laborer in violation of the passport regulations (Rule 11). Three of the students who had received funds through the KNA were additionally charged with coming as immigrants “assisted by others” in violation of the Immigration Act of 1907. The students were detained on Angel Island for two months while Frank Ainsworth, now employed by the KNA as its legal counsel, filed appeals on their behalf. He argued that Koreans had a right to transmit money through the KNA if they so chose, that their families, not the KNA, had paid for their passage, and that no Korean had been known to be a public charge. “Is the Board not unduly apprehensive in its duty to keep Asiatic laborers out of the United States?” he wrote. This last statement is ironic coming from Ainsworth, who had recently sided with the Asiatic Exclusion League against South Asian immigration. With World War I raging in Europe and refugees fleeing to America in droves, Ainsworth also employed the refugee argument in his appeal without realizing that Congress, which was considering new immigration legislation at this time, had European refugees, not Asian refugees, in mind.40

In the opinion of counsel this alien as others of his class should be considered not as the usual immigrant but more in that spirit which prompted Congress to write in the Immigration Law that political refugees should not be barred for political reasons if otherwise admissible. The Koreans may well be called the Belgians of the Orient. Their country has been occupied by a stronger power and their rulers deposed. Many have been forced to leave their native country. Those who left Korea before the Japanese occupation are veritable people without a country and Secretary of State Bryan according to the public press about July 1, 1913 announced that as such they would not be regarded as Japanese subjects.

Commissioner White, however, felt differently. He recommended that exclusion be sustained in all the cases, citing the Immigration Bureau’s directive in each instance: “Attention is invited to Bureau letter No. 53260/91 of October 21, 1914, wherein the conditions referred to are identical with this alien’s case, coming without a passport and embarking for the United States upon a vessel of American registry.” We may never know for sure who was telling the truth or what these students were thinking

while detained on Angel Island except for the following letter that we found in Kim Chin Young’s file. At his BSI hearing on December 4, 1916, he told Inspector James Lawler that he was twenty-one years old, born in Korea, single, a student, and heading to live with his brother-in-law Han Chang Ho, a farmer in Manteca, California. When asked why he had no money with him, he explained that he had plenty when he left home over six years ago, but spent it all while waiting for a ship in Shanghai. He added, “It was hard for my father to send me money to Shanghai, as the Japanese searched all the letters and it puts them under suspicion.” The next day, when his brother-in-law showed up as a witness, he brought Kim $100 and said he would be willing to support him until the family could send more money from Korea. As was the common practice for Chinese applicants, Han and Kim were grilled about their family backgrounds in order to verify their relationship. Upon cross-examination, some major discrepancies emerged. Han said his wife was still in Korea and that they had no children. Kim, based on sporadic letters he had received from his family in Korea, said he

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thought his sister had immigrated to America three years ago and that the couple had a son. The board used the discrepancies as a further reason to exclude Kim. With the help of Ainsworth and the KNA, he appealed. While waiting for the outcome, he sent the following letter, sincere and desperate in tone, to the commissioner of immigration. It was translated by C. D. Morris.

To the Chief Immigration officer:

I am a Korean who is in trouble, and wishing to come to America have suffered much during the last six years. I went to Southern Manchuria, where fearing arrest from the Japanese, even when eating, if they come near I had to flee. With God’s help I have been able to cross the Pacific Ocean. If the Koreans go to Manchuria the Japanese arrest them and cause them much suffering. Therefore I have had to leave my parents and those I hold dear and travel hither and thither not knowing what it was best to do. Mr. Morris, who is interpreting, knows the condition of our people. America has pitied the Koreans and has received them although they had no passports. We know that we have not been able to keep the law in many ways and feel much ashamed.

Again I wish to speak of my condition. I came to America wishing to study the manufacturing of machinery. If one of you who is employed will take me to his home for three months, I will furnish my board and school expenses. After that money will come from my home. I have one hundred dollars to take with me now, so I hope that one of you will send me to a school where I can study English. There is one kind of work which I know how to do thoroughly. That is how to make leather shoes like the Americans wear. I trust that you will pity me and grant that I may stay here and study. If we have disobeyed the laws of America, we can understand why we should be sent back, but I do not see that I have broken the law and so trust that you will carefully think over my case again.

When I was examined my answers did not agree with my brother-in-law’s and so you thought that he was not my brother-in-law, but he truly is my sister’s husband. My brother- in-law and my first cousin (mother’s sister’s son) are both here in America so that there is no concern about money for my support, before money comes from my home in Korea. Therefore will not one of you take me for three months and prove me as to whether I am what I claim to be? I trust that you will call me once more for examination.

(Signed) Kim Chin Young

No one stepped forward to take Kim up on his offer. He was not called back for examination but deported with the others.41

Despite this first major setback with the Ecuador students, David Lee and the KNA remained involved in immigration matters on Angel Island, but they were not as influential in helping Koreans land. As the word got out that they were no longer welcomed in America, fewer Koreans immigrated. In late 1915, Commissioner White proudly wrote Commissioner- General of Immigration Caminetti, “I can assure the [Japanese] Consul that for some months past the provisions of Rule 11 have been strictly enforced with apparently effective result, as the applications for admission of this class of aliens have been generally decreasing, and for

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the past couple of months no applications for admission have been made.”42 Then on July 26, 1917, the secretary of state and secretary of labor issued a joint order that

put a stop to Korean immigration altogether. Passed as a war measure to protect the country from foreign agents and spies, the joint order required that all entering aliens carry passports visaed by a U.S. consul. When fourteen more Korean students arrived without passports aboard the Columbia from Shanghai on November 9, 1917, David Lee was back on the job as the Korean interpreter, but he was not able to help them gain entry. This time, the students came armed with strong letters of recommendation and student documents. Some even had relatives in America willing to assist them. Immigration officials believed them to be bona fide students but excluded all of them for “not being in possession of a passport properly visaed, as now required.”43

Kim Ok Yun’s passport photo, 1926. (Scan by Vincent Chin. National Archives, Pacific Regional Branch.)

In his appeal on behalf of the students, Frank Ainsworth argued that students coming from China were not required to have passports, but this point was soon discounted in a telegram from the Immigration Bureau that stated, “Exempt Section Six Chinese, all others should carry passports.” Playing on the patriotic fervor of a country at war, Ainsworth reminded the U.S. government that Koreans were political refugees no different from “those Hungarians like Lajos Kossuth [or] those patriotic Poles like Tadeusz Kosciuszko who, after their countries were captured by a stronger nation, fled to the United States where they were welcomed.” In fact, he added, these Koreans may be safely admitted as “alien friends and not alien enemies,” because they had all agreed in writing to join the U.S. armed forces if so required. This time, Commissioner White recommended that the department sustain all of the appeals, but the secretary of labor, for unknown reasons, would only admit eight of the fourteen students. Korean students stopped coming after 1918 because of the new passport requirements. Not

until Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1924, which barred all Asian immigrants but exempted students with proper documents and a visa from the American consulate, were 300 more Korean students, men and women, able to come. Among them were Kim Ok Yun in 1926 and Choi Kyung Sik in 1925.

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When Kim Ok Yun arrived in San Francisco from Shanghai on the President Pierce, she came armed with a Section Six student visa issued by the American consulate at Shanghai and a letter of acceptance from the San Francisco National Training School. The visa indicated that she was a graduate of the Yei Sin Baptist Missionary School in Masan, Korea, and a naturalized Chinese citizen. According to her sister Shinn Kang-ae, who had immigrated as a picture bride in 1914 and was living in San Francisco’s Chinatown at the time, Ok Yun had been an undercover agent in the anti-Japanese resistence movement in Korea.

In 1919, she was in the Mansei movement,44 and the Japanese would not give her a passport, so during the night she disguised herself as an old Chinese woman and escaped to China. My sister prepared for English and studied in China for three years before coming to the U.S. She had a Chinese passport. She dressed as a Chinese and passed undetected when the Japanese officials went aboard the ship to rout out the Koreans. When she arrived, the immigration authorities locked her up for one week. They said she had something inside sick and we had to make a $100 deposit.45

Ok Yum was found to have hookworm. After a brief interview, the BSI decided to admit her as a bona fide student on the condition that she be treated for the hookworm. The Korean National Association deposited $100 for her medical treatment and she was subsequently cured and released from the island twelve days later. For the next seven years, Ok Yum lived with her sister’s family in Chinatown while she attended college. She did not dare seek employment or engage in any political activities for fear of jeopardizing her good standing as a foreign student. Upon graduating in 1933, she returned to her hometown in Korea, where she taught at a girls’ school and rejoined the political movement for independence. Relatives in America never heard from her again and suspect that she may have been killed by the Japanese secret police because of her political activities.46

Choi Kyung Sik’s passport photo, 1925. (Scan by Eddie Wong. National Archives, Pacific Regional Branch.)

Unlike Kim Ok Yun, Choi Kyung Sik took a different route. He was able to secure a Japanese passport and an immigration visa from the American consulate in Korea before

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embarking from Yokohama on the Taiyo Maru for San Francisco. According to his immigration file, Kyung Sik graduated from Chosen Christian College with a degree in literature in 1924 and had been accepted as a student by De Pauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. His file also contained a letter in Korean signed by a relative and the mayor of Seoul certifying that 9,000 yen ($4,500) had been set aside for his education in America. Noting that “applicant speaks English fairly well, seems to be a bright young boy, is no doubt of student class,” the Board of Special Inquiry landed him the next day.47 From a poem that Kyung Sik composed and that was published in the Sinhan Minbo on April 30, 1925, we know that he did not enjoy his one-night stay at the immigration station.

A Night at the Immigration Station by Choi Kyung Sik Translated by Jikyung Hwang and Charles Egan48

Why are my hands, Exhausted from crossing a vast ocean, Now holding iron bars? The rain cries out and wakes me up Because it pities me. Angel Island, sleeping tight, No matter whether you hear this song or not, It is the complaint of a foreign guest Whose whole heart is burning.

Even though it’s said America is wonderful, How pathetic it has made me. If my mother knew about this, How shocked she would be.

This border created by rascals— When can it be broken? I hope people all over the world Will become brothers soon.

April 3rd Written on a rainy night at the immigration station on Angel Island, San Francisco, America.

Like Choi Kyung Sik, most of the Korean students who came to America after 1924 applied for their visas as Japanese subjects from the U.S. consulate in Seoul and were released from Angel Island within a day or two after they passed the immigrant inspection. Although there was less need for the Korean National Association to get involved in these cases, the organization continued to send a representative to greet each new arrival and to offer its services, such as paying for medical treatment, transmitting letters and money, and contacting witnesses and colleges to confirm a student’s status. After the students were admitted, the KNA

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continued to assist them with housing, part-time employment, financial aid, and legal advice. In these ways, the KNA made it possible for many Koreans to land and succeed in America.49 In truth, as immigrant inspectors suspected, most of the refugee students who came before

1924 could not count on their families in Korea to support them in America. Rather, most had to take part-time jobs as gardeners, dishwashers, houseboys, and farmworkers. Their limited English and need to work made it difficult for them to keep up with their schooling. Only 20 percent of them graduated from college, but many opted to stay in America rather than return to an unstable country. In contrast, 65 percent of the Korean students who came after 1924 graduated from college, many at the doctoral degree level, because they were both academically and financially better prepared than the earlier wave of students. Although immigration authorities were quite diligent about enforcing the law that students not work and that they leave the country when they finished their studies, quite a few students overstayed their visas and remained in America. Those who returned to Korea were able to put their education to good use and help rebuild the country after independence from Japan was won in August 1945.50 Unlike the Chinese detainees, the Koreans left no poems on the barrack walls of Angel

Island. But periodically poems were published in the Sinhan Minbo. Many of the poems dwelled on the trials and tribulations of immigrant life in America. A few, like Choi Kyung Sik’s poem and the following poem, focused specifically on the Angel Island experience. Written under the pen name of Cloud, “Angel Island” was published on August 8, 1929.

The only Korean inscription found at the immigration station appears on a column on the second floor of the detention barracks. The words, “Ryu in-bal, ku-wol-ryug-il,” are written in Korean Hangul and Chinese characters, giving the person’s name and the date: Rhew In-Bal, September 6, 1923. Translated by Hyonggyu Rhew. (Courtesy of Architectural Resources Group.)

Angel Island by Cloud Translated by Jikyung Hwang and Charles Egan51

Angel Island, Angel Island, all the people said, So I thought it would be like heaven. Yet when the iron gate locks with a clang—

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It feels like hell.

You, the masses of people Who are wriggling in this steel-barred prison, You have a home, you have a country. So what is the reason for this sorrow? It must be a hungry belly That causes this Karma.

Picture Brides and Families There were so few women among the early Korean immigrants to America that in 1910, the Korean male to female ratio was 6 to 1 in Hawaii, and 9 to 1 on the U.S. mainland. The scarcity of Korean women posed a problem for the single men who wanted to marry and stay in America rather than return to an unstable country under Japanese colonial rule. A small percentage of the men chose to intermarry with local women. Many others, learning from the example of the Japanese, took advantage of U.S. immigration policies and the Korean custom of arranged marriage to send for picture brides from Korea. Although the Japanese government had put a stop to Korean emigration, they were willing to let women out of the country as a way to calm political passions among overseas Koreans. For Korean women who were eager to go to the fabled land of gold and freedom, the picture bride route was their only way out.52

From 1910 until 1920, when the “Ladies Agreement” put an end to picture bride migration from both Japan and Korea, over 1,000 Korean women chose this route—951 immigrated to Hawaii and 115 to the U.S. mainland. Ranging in age from fourteen to twenty-five, the women were generally better educated and younger than their husbands by a decade or two. Most of the picture brides who went to Hawaii were from the southern part of Korea near Youngnam, while those who went to the U.S. mainland via China were from the northern provinces of Pyongan and Hwanghae. Similar to the Japanese practice, a matchmaker or relative was engaged to help the groom in America find a bride in his hometown. Family backgrounds were investigated, and photographs and letters were exchanged. When the time came for the bride to leave for America, the groom sent the necessary travel funds to the bride. If she was leaving legally according to Japanese regulations, she would have been issued a Japanese passport. With that in hand, she traveled by boat to Yokohama, where she had to pass a physical examination before boarding a Japanese steamship for America. Those unable to secure a Japanese passport for one reason or another often left by way of China, much like the refugee students, and booked passage on an American steamship in Shanghai. Some of the young women were so brazen and desperate to get to America that they sought out the services of a matchmaker on their own.53 Among the small number of Korean picture brides who came through Angel Island were nineteen-year-old Shinn Kang-ae in 1914 and eighteen-year-old Kim Suk-eun in 1913. Ever since she heard about “the wonderful land of freedom” from American missionaries in

Korea, Shinn Kang-ae had dreamed of someday sailing to America to continue her education. “At that time, Japan controlled Korea and I did not want to study under them, they were so

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cruel.” A family friend in San Francisco recommended Shinn Han to her as a good man to marry. Han had immigrated to Hawaii in 1903 to work on the sugar plantations. After two years of hard labor, he had saved enough money to move to the mainland, where he started a dry cleaning business in San Francisco. Kang-ae’s mother and older brother approved of the marriage and made all the necessary arrangements on her behalf, including securing a Japanese passport. Her brother, who was a tailor, had a Western suit made for Kang-ae to wear on the trip, and he accompanied her to Yokohama. There they stayed at a Korean inn for a short period while waiting for the results of her physical examination and for passage to the United States.54

After the ship docked in San Francisco, the first person to come on board to greet Kang-ae was none other than David Lee. “He was kungminhoe [KNA] president, and he could get a pass and go aboard,” she explained. Lee kindly escorted her to Angel Island, where Kang-ae went through the physical examination and interview “with no problem” and promptly returned by ferry to San Francisco. She likely breezed through the interview because she had a Japanese passport and Lee was there to vouch for her. Kang-ae found her fiancé Han anxiously waiting for her at the San Francisco dock. When her daughter Sonia asked what her first impression of him was, she replied, “He wasn’t too bad looking, much like the photograph. I knew he was going to be my husband. I didn’t know about love, but I believe he is nice man.” After all, didn’t he send her a Korean-English book, Learning English without a Teacher, to prepare her for life in America? “Your papa always good to me.” A week later, abiding by U.S.immigration law, Kang-ae, dressed in a white gown and veil, and Han, in a rented black tuxedo, were married at the Korean Methodist Church (see photo on page 202). The couple settled in San Francisco’s Chinatown, where Han ran a successful barbershop and Kang-ae worked as a seamstress at a garment factory while raising a family of four children.

Shinn Han (left), daughter Sonia, Shinn Kang-ae, and son Daye in 1917. (Courtesy of USC Korean American Digital Archive.)

Compared to Shinn Kang-ai, Kim Suk-eun had a hard time coming to America as a picture bride. A daughter of a wealthy businessman, Suk-eun grew up in the North, resenting the Japanese occupation. “The Japanese controlled education, and Koreans were forced to learn,

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use and speak Japanese,” she said. “Day by day, no more freedom—that’s why I wanted to leave Korea, and the only route was as a picture bride.” Her girlfriends in America as well as political leader Ahn Chang-ho,55 who was a friend of her father, recommended Kim Hong Kyun to her as a prospective husband. He was a thirty-two-year-old farmer in Sacramento, California. “Really, I didn’t want to marry, but I did wish to get to America,” she told Sonia Sunoo in an interview years later. But her parents were dead set against the marriage. “To go to America for an education is OK to them, but not as a picture bride,” she explained. “My parents said, ‘You go marry over there, and something go wrong, don’t tell family. You go drown in the ocean.’ I was so angry with them that I did not write to them for ten years after I arrived in America.”56 Because she could not secure a passport from the Japanese officials, Suk-eun decided to

escape across the Yalu River at night and make her way to Shanghai, where she booked passage with money that her fiancé had sent her. Disguised in a Chinese gown, she boarded the ship and hid from the Japanese authorities in the steerage room with two other picture brides— most likely Chang Kyung Ai and Lee Che Hyun, who were later detained on Angel Island with her. “I was very frightened,” she recalled, “but I was lucky because I had money to bribe working people to keep quiet about me.” The three women slept and ate in the steerage room. “I paid for my meals on the ship,” Suk-eun said. “I was sometimes served Chinese food, sometimes American. I didn’t like any of it, but I was hungry, so I had to eat it.” After making one stop in Hawaii for a week, the ship arrived in San Francisco on August 2, and Suk-eun was married on August 24. No mention was made of Angel Island in her interview with Sunoo, but according to their

immigration records, Kim Suk-eun, Chang Kyung Ai, and Lee Che Hyun were all taken to Angel Island for further examination upon their arrival in San Francisco. After Suk-eun passed the physical examination, she was called to appear before the BSI with Lee acting as the interpreter. It was a brief interview during which she was asked fourteen questions about her background and reasons for coming to the United States. Kim Hong Kyun, who was there to claim her as his bride, was asked fifteen questions about his immigration status and financial situation. Satisfled that as a grocer with $1,000 in the bank and $120 in cash with him, he would be able to provide for her, the board admitted Suk-eun on the proviso that the couple be married according to American custom.57 Whereas passports, photographs, and proof of engagement were asked of the Japanese

brides, the same was not required of Suk-eun and other Korean brides. When asked why she did not have any documentary evidence of her engagement, Suk-eun replied, “I stayed in China for many years and was unable to bring it with me.” Aware of the plight of Korean refugees, the board seemed satisfled with her response, just as they were with Lee Che Hun’s response as to why she did not have a passport, “I came from Shanghai.” None of the three picture brides were even asked if they had any “show money.” In contrast, the Korean male students who had also come without documentation were grilled about their nationality, family background, financial situation, and status as students. Sukeun had also said she was a student before coming to America, but the BSI did not ask her for any proof. Instead, Inspector William Chadney made a point of noting in her file, “Applicant has the appearance of a student.” The

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board was apparently only interested in stopping Korean laborers from entering the country. On the whole, immigration officials at the Angel Island station were more lenient with the Korean women than the men. The women were detained on Angel Island for no more than three days while the men were detained for five days to a month.

Three newly married couples pose in front of the Korean Methodist Church at 1123 Bush Street in San Francisco. Shinn Han and Shinn Kang-ae are the couple in the middle; Whang Sa Sun is standing in the back row to the left of the church building; Whang Sa Yong is standing in the second row to the right of the man waving his hat; and the Reverend David Lee is standing in the back row to the right of Whang Sa Song. (Courtesy of USC Korean American Digital Archive.)

As agreed, Suk-en did marry Kim Hong Kyun in a wedding officiated by the Reverend David Lee, a week after she was landed. But her marriage did not turn out to be a happy one. She did not like being a farmer’s wife.

Soon after my arrival and marriage to Mr. Kim, I knew that an education could not be realized. Finding a job would be an impossibility. The depth of my despair and disappointment was greater than imaginable. I felt bitter that my husband was much older than what his picture revealed. I had been deceived. It was very difficult for me, under the circumstances to face the realities of my fate.

I married Mr. Kim, took care of him and our four children, and kept house. This is my story and my secret which I am revealing for the first time, even to my own children. I am just a picture bride, married and that’s all. Suk-en was not alone in finding herself trapped in an unhappy marriage with her ambitions

dashed. The Sinhan Minbo reported on other brides who had broken off their engagements and wives who had taken the initiative to file for divorce, an action that was extremely uncommon at that time.58 One long article, “On Understanding Marriage by Photo Exchange,”

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acknowledged that an arranged marriage was not the ideal way to get married, but for Koreans in America, there was no other way. The unsigned article went on to attribute the problem in these marriages to class incompatibility and self-disillusion. To the prospective groom, the article recommended that he be honest with himself and select a bride of equal or less stature to him in order to avoid being humiliated.

Many of you in America are laborers who cannot even write a letter by yourselves, yet you are carrying around the photographs of women who are middle school graduates, dreaming of which one to pick! Don’t be a fool! Those educated Korean women who have been desperate to leave Korea since annexation will not treat you mere laborers with respect. It is best for students to choose students, teachers to choose teachers, and laborers to choose sincere women from the countryside.

To the prospective bride, the writer urged her not to be presumptuous or greedy, but to honor her commitment to the marriage.

How foolish you are as a homemaker if you think that you are better than your husband, who is laboring outside, just because of a little bit of education. Only the mature and truly learned person can recognize and respect the value of manual labor. Treating your husband with disrespect indicates that you have not learned anything. If you want happiness in life, you must treat your husband with love and respect.59

Many of the Korean men were married, but their wives were in Korea, and although the Japanese government was willing to issue passports to them, this was easier said than done. According to a letter that David Lee wrote to the Angel Island commissioner of immigration in his role as KNA president, such passports were impossible for Koreans to obtain at any price. Yet, as many as 200 men, all of whom had come to the United States before the annexation of Korea, wanted to bring their wives to America. In his letter Lee addressed two concerns Americans had about Asian women. He assured the commissioner that “there is not any single Korean woman in America who lived immoral lives, while there are good many other Oriental nationalities have trouble with it.” Moreover, he wrote, “No Korean in America will permit his wife to work for a living.” Written after the new passport and visa requirements were issued on July 26, 1917, the letter asked the commissioner to admit Korean wives and “engaged brides” without passports when they came from a country outside of Japanese dominion.60 It was a good faith effort by Lee and the Korean National Association to help reunite couples, establish family life, and stabilize the Korean community, but to no avail. The commissioner’s hands were tied by the joint order requiring visaed passports. Even Assistant Secretary of Labor Post could not help them. In reply to the secretary of state’s request for clarification on the matter, he wrote, “Since those instructions [General Instructions 565 from the joint order] became operative in the Orient, it will not be possible for a Korean to land at a port of the United States unless he holds a passport obtained and approved in the manner specifled by said regulations.”61 Im So See was one of the few Korean wives lucky enough to secure a Japanese passport to

immigrate to the United States with her stepdaughter Pok Kyong Whan, stepson Pok Tong Khan, Lee, Erika, and Judy Yung. Angel Island : Immigrant Gateway to America, Oxford University Press USA - OSO, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/berkeley-ebooks/detail.action?docID=578792. Created from berkeley-ebooks on 2019-07-08 20:21:39.

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and daughter Pok Yun Sun (see photo on page 176). Arriving in San Francisco from Yokohama on March 12, 1914, the family was taken to Angel Island for the physical examination and interrogation. So See told the Board of Special Inquiry through interpreter Lee that she had married Pok Kyung Soo, a widower with two children, five years ago in Seoul, and that they were going to join him in Idaho, where she planned to “keep house” and send the children to school. When asked if she had ever tried to come to the United States before, she replied, “No, it took us about 12 months to get our passport to come here now.” When asked why it took so long, stepdaughter Kyong Whan explained, “The government takes a census and we had to wait until they found our names on the census and we had to be examined physically, and that took about 12 months.” As other Korean immigrants had testifled before, such delays in issuing passports were common and intended to discourage Korean applicants. But evidently, the Pok family persisted.62 Compared to the brief interviews of Korean picture brides and grooms, the interrogation of

wives and husbands proved more difficult. Pok Tong Khan was asked over forty questions about his immigration and financial status. He told the board that he first immigrated to Hawaii in 1905, then to San Francisco a year later. His answers regarding his first wife’s death and his remarriage in 1910 aligned with those of his wife Im So See. But the board was not convinced that he actually owned a house and farmed on nine acres of leased land near Boise. They decided to defer the case and detain the family on Angel Island until evidence could be produced. Only after they received a telegram from the postmaster in Mountain Home, Idaho, stating that “Park Kyung Soo fully able to support family, owns town lot, has leased small farm,” did they admit Soo See and stepson Tong Khan on March 23, eleven days after their arrival. Because Kyong Whan had hookworm and Yun Sun had the measles, the two girls had to stay at the hospital for treatment and were not admitted until April 6. Still, they had all managed to pass the double test of proving their family relationships and Park’s qualifications to sponsor and support them—no mean feat in order to enter through the Angel Island gateway to America.

Meung-son and Rose Paik on their wedding day in 1929. (Courtesy of USC Korean American Digital Archive.)

Sixty years later, Rose Paik (Pok Yun Sun) would explain why the family chose to come to America: “Japan took over and we were able to get away.” She said her father was a bartender

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in Idaho at the time and the family initially farmed in Oregon. When Rose was almost fourteen, her mother died in childbirth. Soon after, the family moved back to Idaho to farm, growing beans, corn, potatoes, and strawberries. “In a farm family,” Rose told Sunoo, “we all had to work, work, work! I was used to driving horses and pitching hay.” When she turned seventeen, Rose agreed to an arranged marriage with Paik Meung-son, a farmer’s son. The couple farmed in Utah for about seven years and then decided to move to Los Angeles, where Meung worked as a salesman for a Korean canned food company and where they raised a family of six children.63 Some Koreans, unable to obtain a Japanese passport and unable to immigrate to the United

States without one after 1918 resorted to using Chinese passports. This was how Lyang Hong, who had come to the United States as a student via China in 1916, was able to send for his wife and daughter. The plan was quite ingenious and complicated because as Chinese subjects, they came under the Chinese Exclusion Act, which unlike the Gentlemen’s Agreement, prohibited family members of laborers from immigrating to the United States. Lyang had to become a merchant in order to send for his family. That the plan worked—both wife and child were admitted a week after their arrival—attests to the excellent groundwork laid by Lyang as well as the assistance of relatives in Shanghai, friends and witnesses in San Francisco, and legal counsel Frank Ainsworth.64 On October 25, 1922, Pak Sum Oi arrived in San Francisco on the Nile from Shanghai,

accompanied by her eight-year-old daughter Lyang Ai Shun. Upon questioning by a Board of Special Inquiry with Frank Kim as the interpreter, she claimed to be of the Korean race but a citizen of China through naturalization. She could read and write Korean, had about $50, and was going to her husband Lyang Hong. When asked what she expected to do in this country, if admitted, she replied, “Keep house.” Lyang Hong then appeared for questioning. He told the board that he was part owner of a

ginseng shop in San Francisco and that he too was a naturalized citizen of China, at which point he produced the family’s certificate of naturalization. The board, realizing that the case would have to be handled under the provisions of the Chinese Exclusion Act, had evidently never heard such a case before. Q: How did you know it was possible for you to be naturalized as a Chinese citizen, and still be a resident of this country? A: I couldn’t get a passport without that paper and had to become a Chinese citizen.

Q: But how did you know you could get this certificate of naturalization without going to China yourself and appear before the proper authorities? A: My brother wrote, telling me in order to get permission to come forward, I would have to be a Chinese citizen and I wrote him to do the necessary to make me a Chinese citizen and he did so, sending me the papers.

Q: Did your brother tell you it was possible for you to become a naturalized citizen of China, even though you were over in this country at the time? A: Yes, my brother wrote me to that effect. Still, Lyang had to prove to the immigration officials that Sum Oi and Ai Shun were indeed

his wife and daughter and that he had been a merchant for at least one year prior to their Lee, Erika, and Judy Yung. Angel Island : Immigrant Gateway to America, Oxford University Press USA - OSO, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/berkeley-ebooks/detail.action?docID=578792. Created from berkeley-ebooks on 2019-07-08 20:21:39.

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application for admission. Within a few days, he satisfactorily established his merchantile status by the testimony of two credible white witnesses. He also produced his bank book showing $1,000 in savings and his firm’s account books showing that he became a partner of Lyang and Chang Company on November 1, 1921. Lyang also asked Whang Sa Sun, who was present at his wedding in Korea, to come to Angel Island and testify to that effect. Finally, he got Frank Ainsworth to file all the necessary affidavits with the case. All this work paid off. Even though Lyang was six days short of being a merchant for one year preceding the application for his family’s admission, Inspector Joseph Strand recommended the applicants be admitted as wife and daughter of a domiciled merchant. Lyang Hong’s son, Donald Lyang doubts that his father was ever a ginseng merchant. He

remembers his father telling him that he was beaten up and thrown in jail by the Japanese for protesting. After he got to America, “he was a cook for awhile and he worked in the quicksilver mines, rice fields, and fruit orchards, taking whatever jobs he could find. It took him six years before he had enough money to bring my mother and sister over.” Soon after, Lyang Hong got a position as a janitor and gardener for the Standard Oil Company in Coalinga, California. It was a good job and the family was provided with subsidized housing. Lyang remained with the company for twenty-seven years until he retired. True to her word, Sum Oi stayed home and raised a family of two boys and two girls. “We were the only Koreans in town,” recalled Donald, “so my mother was pretty lonely in Coalinga. As far as social life went, there wasn’t very much for my mother except when we visited Koreans in Reedley, Dinuba, and Delano.” She passed away in 1938. His father, on the other hand, was active in the KNA and read the Sinhan Minbo faithfully to stay informed of developments in Korea and the Korean community. Lyang Hong lived long enough to see Donald return home alive from the Korean War, graduate from college, and become a successful manufacturing engineer and commercial property owner.65 Many other Korean immigrant families were not so fortunate. According to Paul Whang, the

eldest child of the Reverend Whang Sa Sun, “As early as I can remember, it was a tough life for my parents. My father was deeply involved in the church and independence movement, while running a dry cleaning shop. His church pay wasn’t much. They struggled.” The family lived in the back of the shop and Paul recalled making weekly trips to a bathhouse in Chinatown because they did not have a bathtub. In 1939, Paul earned his teaching credentials from San Francisco State College, but “because of my color, they closed the door in my face,” he said. Instead, he took a job at the Angel Island Immigration Station as a “messenger servant” for the hospital. Present when the fire broke out and destroyed the administration building in 1940, Paul served as a key witness in the investigation.66 He left the immigration service to join the navy as a pharmacist at the start of World War II. After opportunities opened up for Asian Americans in the 1950s, Paul passed the San Francisco civil service exam for playground director and devoted thirty years of his life serving the recreational needs of Chinatown.67 Sonia Shinn Sunoo, the eldest child of Shinn Han and Kang-ae, had a similar story to tell.

According to her book, Korean Picture Brides, her mother came to a rude awakening about America, “the wonderful land of the free,” on her wedding night. Her husband Han had

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prepared comfortable living quarters for her behind his pressing parlor business, which happened to be in a white neighborhood.

In the quiet of the night, a crashing sound of shattering glass awakened them. Vandals had thrown a rock through the plate glass window. Shards of glass flew everywhere. My mother, petrifled with fear, stood by trembling and bewildered. She watched Papa board up the window and sweep the debris. He explained, “It would be useless to seek police assistance. This is a white man’s world, and the less we bother, the better.”68

For the next few years, the couple struggled to make ends meet. Han held two or three part- time jobs while Kang-ae ran the cleaning business and took care of their four children. There was no time for her to fulfill her dream of getting an education. Even after the family moved to Chinatown, where Han operated a five-chair barbershop, Kang-ae continued to work long hours in a sewing factory to help support the family. She eventually saved enough money to purchase a forty-room hotel, which became well known among Korean merchant seamen as Shinn Halmoni or Grandma Shinn’s Kearny [Street] Hotel. She retired in comfort and lived to be eighty-eight years old. Like Paul Whang, Sonia Sunoo grew up in the sheltered environment of San Francisco’s

Chinatown and was encouraged by her parents to pursue higher education. But upon graduating from San Francisco State College with a B.A. degree in English and biology, she was told it would be useless for her to go on to graduate school since the public schools in California did not hire Orientals. “What a shock it was that the first college graduate in the family would experience such discrimination,” she wrote. Instead, she accepted a scholarship to the College of Cosmetology and with her parents’ support, opened “Sonia’s Korean Beauty Salon” on the outskirts of Chinatown. After she married political scientist Harold Sunoo and had two children, Sonia devoted many years of her life to teaching early childhood education and collecting oral histories of early Korean immigrants. She co-authored Korea Kaleidoscope: Oral Histories with Harold Sunoo in 1982 and wrote Korean Picture Brides: A Collection of Oral Histories in 2002. As difficult as their lives were after Angel Island, Koreans were spared the pain and agony of internment during World War II. Even though Korea was legally a part of the Japanese Empire, the U.S. Department of Justice chose to recognize Koreans as an independent entity and ruled in January 1942 that they did not need to register as “enemy aliens.” But like Japanese immigrants, Koreans had to wait until 1952 before they could resume immigration to the United States and become eligible for U.S. citizenship. In contrast, Russian and Jewish immigrants fleeing religious and political persecution at the same time as the Koreans were treated more leniently at Angel Island because of their race, nationality, and ethnic network of support in America. For them, Angel Island proved to be an open gateway to the Promised Land.

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Deaconess Katharine Maurer (center) surrounded by a large group of immigrants from Russia and Central Europe in the multipurpose room of the administration building. (Courtesy of California State Parks, 2010.)

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