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[Feature]Korean Immigrants In America④

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작성자 minjok 작성일02-01-18 00:00 조회2,454회 댓글0건

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Chapter Four: ECONOMIC MOTIVATION FOR THE IMMIGRANTS


sunwoohakwon.jpg One of the main motivations for the Korean immigrants coming to America was an economic. Famine had struck Korea. Particularly badly hit was the Hwanghae province and many of the farmers were in starvation conditions. Not only was the feudalistic Korean government unable to handle the critical situation but the pressure of the Japanese invasion of the country made the situation even worse.

At the time of the Japanese invasion, the Korean society was based on a backward feudalistic agricultural system. It was a feudal society in which the craftsmen provided hand made necessities to small tribal villages. Financial resources were quite limited and prevented capital accumulation until Japanese funds were brought in at the time of their invasion. This situation had prevented a natural transformation of the feudalistic economy to the capitalistic economy in Korea.

In Japan there had been no real development of class capitalism in the European sense. By the end of the Tokugawa feudalistic society and the beginning of the modern Meiji period, the Japanese feudalistic joined the capitalistic group rather than fight against them. It was a necessary path under the Western pressures. The Meiji restoration could hardly solve the economic problem of the nation, especially those of the farmers. The landlords became an ally of the city bourgeoisie class and the farmers were left out as urban capitalistic competition pursued its course.

Since Western capitalists were already strong, Japan could not afford internal strife while its national life was in danger. By the time the Japanese capitalists looked for colonies, Korea was there to be exploited. Korea already had a close relationship with China, and later with Russia, the United States, and others. Japan approached with caution, but with a determination finally annexed her. After many problems presented themselves, the most important of which was the agricultural one.

The economy of Korea, as that of China and most other Asiatic states, was founded on agriculture. For this reason, Japan"s control over Korean land, especially farm land, meant control over Korea"s economic livelihood. It also meant economic chaos for the Korean farmers who made up nearly 90% of the population at the time of Japanese annexation.

The Japanese Government-General of Korea set up, first of all, the Bureau of Temporary Land Investigation which surveyed all the lands. The government spent thirty million Yen for the project. This project proved to be unreasonable one. A large number of the Korean farmers who did not understand the Japanese language failed to register their land as demanded by the government and the land which was not registered in a given period of time could not be claimed by them. In this way the farmers lost much of their land while numerous merchants from the cities took this opportunity to appropriate land by registering the farmland of the more unfortunate farmers. Many of them became the landlords and appeasers of Japanese imperialism.

Because of the financial hold Japan had on Korean economic life, the Korean farmers were forced to submit to the demands of Japanese imperialism without receiving any protection from the government. Thus Korean economy, especially of rural economy, was placed wholly at the disposal of the Japanese at this time, leaving the farmers in a tragic economic depression. Under such conditions, many poor farmers searched for their livelihood elsewhere.

Mrs. Kim Sung-Jin was 95 years old when we interviewed her at her farm house in Reedley, California in 1976. She left Korea in 1904 from her city of Haeju. At her age, she was still sturdy and strong with skin firmer and smoother than that of her two middle-aged daughters. In fact, her older daughter pulled up her mother"s slacks to show off her mother"s firm leg muscles.

When asked why she left Korea, she said unhesitatingly, "We left Korea because we were too poor." After a pause for a moment of recollection, she could not restrain her tears. "We had nothing to eat... there was absolutely no way we could survive." Her voice was filled with emotion as she recalled her painful past.

Q. Did you come alone?
A. I came with a person called my husband, my mother, and a younger brother. We all came to Honolulu as immigrants and were sent to different camps... our group was sent to the Ewa camp. We cut sugar canes...

Once again, her sharp mind focused in detail on the whole process of whacking and cutting up the canes for pick-up. She said the work was hard. It seemed as though she had let her mind drift back to her early degrading experiences on the sugar plantation. Suddenly she growled:

I"ll never forget the foreman. No, he wasn"t Korean... he was French. The reason I"ll never forget him is that he was the most ignorant of all ignoramuses, but he knew all the cuss words in the world...

She didn"t know English or French, so how did she know he was cussing? She said that she could tell by the sound of his words.

He said we worked like "lazy". He wanted us to work faster. He would gallop around on horseback and crack and snap his whip... he was so mean and so ignorant!

In spite of all these hardships, she was not sorry she came to America. She told us that: "It was better than Korea because in a month we could get rice, soy sauce and if you needed anything, it eventually could be bought... in those days, we were paid 54 cents for 10 hours, but it was still better than Korea. There was no way to earn money in Korea." She labored in the camp for 18 years, then sailed to California where she spent most of her life doing farm work and raising her four children without her husband who left her, return to Korea and remarry and never return to her. However, she seemed to hold no grudge against her husband. It was still feudalistic times in Korea, and Mrs. Kim apparently was able to accept the situation. Her husband could not endure the hardships of life as a sugar plantation laborer and returned to Korea, a disappointed man. She felt pity for him. When asked about her daily life, she answered, "weed in spring, prune in the winter," she instantly replied. She added, "if it"s cold in the field, you put on lots of clothes."

She enjoyed her life the most when they owned their 300 acres of grape fields in her later life. She sent her children to schools and attended Korean church in Reedley.

Now is happy days for her and her children. After all, she lived on a farm as a tenant before she left for America. She remembers that farming where the family planted millet, weeded, harvested it. Those who owned their lands were doing a right but the tenant farmers did poorly. She lived very poorly in Korea. "In our existence there we had nothing to eat," she recalled. "Just the millet which we tenant farmers shared, that"s all." Working on the American farm was no easy task, although better than similar situation in Korea. She said, "After I came to America, I went to the grape fields. I worked there and worked to death." She explained some of her experiences in farming. "Just take pruning shears and you whack off the ends of those that won"t bear fruit this season." How anyone knows which branch to prune? "You have got to know which branches will bear grapes this season and those that will not bear grapes are cut a certain length." She was very sure of herself.

Q. What do you look forward to?

A. Going to that other world. That"s what I"m looking forward to. I look forward to nothing else. Can you imagine being 96? 96 years old; 96 years old!

Q. When is your birthday?

A. January 15th is my birthday.

Q. Did you have a birthday party?

A. Ha! a birthday party? The children wanted to, but I didn"t want one--it is too bothersome for me.

Q. They wanted to honor your birthday.

A. Honoring me was alright when I was 60 and 61, but now, it"s long time--I have to hurry up and go, but I can"t go to other world. I want so desperately to go and I can"t go.

She seemed to sincere about her going to the other world, and she repeated often while our conversation had continued. Yet, she said "Okay, when we told her that we return again to see her sometime next year or later. The old pioneer has a good sense of humor even though she was tired and restless in her later life.
According to our taped interviews, Mrs. Yoo Soon-gi was only 16 years old when she decided to marry a man who was a sugar plantation worker in Hawaii. Mrs. Yoo said, "I just could not bear the life in Korea." So she asked her school teacher to find out the way to go to America after she graduated from Ilshin Girl"s School in 1918.

She was introduced to a man through one of the many photos which were available. After looking over the men"s pictures, she was given a picture which she showed to her school principal. He said, "On America, a young wife gets lots of affection from an older husband. Go ahead and marry him." The sixteen year old girl, trusting his advice. selected a future husband. She said, "The man I was to marry, Mr. Han Taeyong, was an old man. Even at that time, he was 75 years old. He deceived me and informed me that he was 40."

The young girl arrived in Honolulu, but was detained for two weeks by the immigration office. Her future husband came to pick her up in Honolulu from farm, but he didn"t have sufficient money to deposit with the immigration office. Those others who arrived with her were all gone. She was the only one left. After two weeks she was released and she married Mr. Han, a 75 year old man. She reflected on the situation of that time nearly 60 years later. She said, "Before we were married, you cannot imagine how many times I asked God if I must marry this old man." She had her second cousin who was there already as an early immigrant but he wasn"t much help. The matter had been discussed with her school mates in Korea before her departure and her friends all told her, "Don"t marry. There are many young Korean immigrants in Hawaii. You don"t have to marry him if you don"t want to." However, her parents told her different things. "You must marry the man you promised and not disgrace the family by being unfaithful." So she was in a dilemma. She said, "Even after I arrived in Honolulu and after praying to God, I married him." As soon as they married, Mr. Han took his young bride away to the backwoods from the city because he was afraid of losing her. She said, "At one time he might have been handsome, but now he was a toothless old man. He was humped over... I was helplessly married to him."

The young bride became a young widow at age of 22 with three young children. Her husband"s leg became infected and spread over his torso and he died. How can a young widow with three children survive in a strange land? She had to find a way to support her youngsters. There was no one to rescue her from such desperation. It was not like Korea where her relatives could come to rescue her. In her search for survival, she found another man. She married an older and paralyzed man. He had some savings and was willing to have her and her three children. In return, she had to take care of him. She studied to become a practical nurse for 6 months. She had him in the hospital while she studied. Once she became a nurse, she had him at home. She bathed him and fed him. He died after 5 years.

"I suffered a lot and worked so hard. And I never saw so many mosquitoes in Hawaii in all my life." She recalled. "I had nothing--not even a bowl or a pair of chop sticks. The Japanese neighbors had given me a pot and some dishes to use. Oh, what a life of suffering."

Q. Did you work in the fields, too?

A. I sure did, and cut my fingers, bled all over the place. I worked in a pineapple plantation in Koala. My old man couldn"t work more than 15 days out of a month. He had a hacking cough.

She married for the third time to Mr. Yoo. This had been a happy marriage. Mr. Yoo almost became a dentist in New York but did not graduate. He did not have enough money to finish. Her three children were, of course, all grown up and had their own families at the time of third marriage, and she was very proud of the fact that she looked after them in spite of all the hardships she had encountered.

We found another early pioneer who came to find a better living in America but experienced much hardship in her American life. Her landing experience, first of all, was unpleasant as so many early immigrants experienced. Mrs. Kim Shin-sso arrived in Seattle and was detained 23 days before Mr. Kim Chi-won was able to secure her release. Mr. Kim spent all his money in Seattle while he was waiting for his wife so he had to withdraw some savings in order to travel to Montana where he was farming.

The Kim family was raising vegetables and delivering them to a wholesale company in the city. One of the partners who did the delivering in his truck wanted to quit just when the vegetables were coming up, but Mr. Kim didn"t know how to drive. The family was in a dilemma. A neighbor suggested that the Kim family set up a vegetable stand on the highway and see how it would go. That particular day was Memorial Day. At first, the cars whizzed by without even looking at their produce display. They were discouraged; but later in the afternoon, the cars began to stop and the days that followed were also good. The business became so good that they could hardly supply the demand. They built a little shop, but they just didn"t have enough produce for the markets. Some of the store keepers came and bought to sell at their stores. They kept the same prices as they would have sold to the wholesale stores. The customers began to come regularly and didn"t have enough so they"d leave orders which they"d later come to pick up. The market that they used to deliver to now came to buy from them because their produce was nice and fresh. Business was growing soon they couldn"t raise enough to meet the demand. They bought from neighboring farms for their orders became larger and larger. It was painful work but profitable.

One day Mr. Kim decided he wanted to see how their relatives in Oregon were getting along. He found that they were having a very difficult time there. He thought that they needed his help. Mr. Kim decided to move out to to move to Oregon.

Q. W Oregon and bought a house while he was there in Oregon. After putting $1,000 down for the house, he returned, and soon they decided the business hy? When you were doing so well?
A. Because the land was not ours, it was rented, and since he already bought a house in Oregon. It was war time--1943 we went to Oregon.

When did business in Illinois or Montana, we hung both the American and Korean flags.

Our son saw this 15 acre land which he bought. It had boysenberries, blackberries, open ground, bigger house, etc. So my sister"s family and ours moved into it. After a few months my sister and her family got a separate farm.

My son returned after 3 years of service and since we were farming, he stayed with us and married.

Q. How old was your husband when he came to America?

A. Mr. Kim was 25 years old when he came to Hawaii in 1904 and worked on the plantations. He died in 1972 at the age not quite 93. He was so healthy. I sat here and he sat there, and he"d always say, "Even if I go--I hope He will take me without having to suffer." He"d put the Bible out and watch for me to come and sit down. He"d read a verse and sing a favorite hymn every day. He was so clean to the very end, never had a bed wetting incident or bowel accident.

Q. Did he die in his sleep?

A. One night, he got up to urinate, and couldn"t quite make it--he was clutching his pajamas and shivering with cold. I changed him and put him on my back and kept him warm in bed. He was 24 years my senior. It was a good thing that he was sitting on the toilet seat, otherwise, I would not have been able to get him to bed. He then sat up and asked to call an ambulance. He seemed "okay" so we decided to wait until the next day since it was so late and difficult to get a doctor at that hour. He was fine in the morning. I called the children in the morning and told them what had happened. I didn"t want to be blamed for neglect and had them make arrangements for a doctor"s appointment. My daughter tried to assist him, but he insisted on walking alone to the car. The doctor had him hospitalized for three days.

On the third day, my daughter asked me to go with her to have dinner together then go back to see father. Somehow, I didn"t feel like it. I told her to go home and fix dinner for the children. I sat by the bed and watched as the four other patients were brought their meals. For some reason, they didn"t serve my husband. He was very restless, he was propped up and when I placed him on one side, he"d turn to the other and later when I looked at him, I could see him from the side that one eye was open but the other seemed strange, so I turned him straight, and he passed away just like that... just the way he always prayed... so I called my sister and daughter.

He used to talk of the past with such accuracy although he"d forget about some of the more recent events... he gave me no trouble.

They have been married 53 years. They have struggled, worked hard for their living--seven in the morning to midnight but Mrs. Kim said, "I did not suffer compared with some others. We picked the wrong time to come to America but no regrets."
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