The Immigrant Life of Koreans in Hawaii

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The first challenge faced by the initial immigrants in Hawaii was cutting off their traditional topknots. Although King Gojong had already issued a nationwide edict for men to cut their hair in 1895, many had not complied and continued to wear topknots.

Some of the immigrants had cut their topknots following advice from the Eastern Development Company and the Immigration Agency, but a significant number still arrived in Hawaii with their topknots intact. Upon arrival, they found that the topknots became a spectacle for others and were impractical to maintain while working on the farms. Despite continuous encouragement to cut their hair, many resisted for months, clinging to the dream of returning home after earning enough money.

The immigrants also experienced changes in clothing. When the ship departing from Jemulpo stopped in Japan, the immigration company’s staff distributed Western-style suits to the men after conducting physical examinations.

There was also a shift in mindset among the immigrants, who mostly held deeply ingrained Confucian values, such as the rule that men and women should not sit together after the age of seven. This norm was immediately broken aboard the ship. The confined and crowded conditions forced men and women to mingle for many days, which was initially shocking to everyone. However, the inevitable shared journey of over a month led to a change in their thinking, and by the time they arrived in Hawaii, interactions between men and women had become familiar.

As previously noted by Minister Allen in a letter to the Governor of Hawaii, stating that Koreans were patient, gentle, and hardworking, the early immigrants proved this to be true. However, the work assigned to them was not the cultivation of well-maintained sugarcane fields but the rough and rugged task of creating these plantations.

Armed with axes, they hacked through dense jungles step by step, laboring in the sweltering heat close to 40 degrees Celsius, sweating profusely, and often bloodied as they cleared the land to create flat sugarcane fields.

They arrived in the jungle by 5 a.m. and worked until 11:30 a.m., followed by a 30-minute break for lunch. They resumed work at noon and finished by around 3 p.m., as it became too hot to continue farm work after that time. The average temperature on the sugarcane farm fluctuated around 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

During work hours, the surveillance by foreign overseers was intense; Korean workers, who enjoyed smoking, were not only forbidden from smoking but also from comfortably stretching their backs.

The workers were called by assigned numbers instead of their names, and the overseers, wielding leather whips, constantly urged them to work harder by striking the ground. After enduring heavy labor in the scorching sun, the workers would return to their quarters, where their limbs would cramp and ache so severely that their groans would keep each other awake.

Their daily wage was 69 cents, which was the lowest level for adult men at the time. Sometimes women or minors also worked, and they were paid 50 cents. Their monthly salary amounted to about $18, from which they spent $6-7 on food and $2-3 on clothing and miscellaneous expenses. Some were able to save about $8 a month by not spending money elsewhere.

Some people who were unable to fully repay the ship fare borrowed from Deschler continued to work until the end of their contract and then moved to San Francisco.

In the dormitories, 4-5 people shared a room, but those with wives or children were given separate smaller rooms. Most people who came alone coveted having a separate room.

Korean workers in the early Hawaiian farms endured unfair discrimination and personal disregard without protest, largely due to the fear of losing their jobs and being deported from the United States if they complained, compounded by language barriers. Interpreters, aligning naturally with the farm owners due to their roles, received significantly higher wages and encouraged the workers to keep laboring. The animosity towards the Japanese among the Koreans was so strong that the Japanese consulate in Hawaii advised Japanese people to avoid Koreans if possible.

Culturally, the Koreans could not tolerate certain Japanese practices such as men wearing only a fundoshi (a type of traditional Japanese undergarment) or mixed-gender public baths, which were bewildering to Koreans, coming from a country of strict etiquette.

Many Korean workers had never experienced such hard labor as in the sugarcane fields back in their homeland. They struggled to adapt to the grueling work and were eager to leave whenever an opportunity arose.

Furthermore, accustomed to a climate with distinct seasons, they found the consistently hot weather unbearable. When Hawaii became a U.S. territory, opening the possibility of moving to the mainland, a large number of them did so, with over a thousand migrating.

Women’s labor was not any easier than men’s. Waking up at 4 a.m., they prepared breakfast and lunch mostly for the workers who came alone, washed clothes soiled with sweat and fatigue, and then had to start preparing dinner, enduring hard domestic labor all day. The only way they knew the time was by the sound of a horn blown on the farm, which they used to organize their day from start to finish.


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