To Inform, Enlighten and Empower
Scientific, technological, social, economic and cultural news for the
Korean-American professional community
KASTN
KOREAN-AMERICAN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
NEWS
ISSN 1089-7518
Founded May 23, 1995
The Korean-American Science and Technology News, KASTN, is a biweekly
global electronic newsletter. It carries news and analyses not only in science and
technology but also social, economic, and cultural issues as they relate to the
general interest of the Korean-American professional community. KASTN
publications are copyrighted and their redistribution is hereby permitted provided
it is not for profit and with proper acknowledgment to KASTN. KASTN and its
sister newsletter IEKAS are posted on the homepage of the Society of KoreanAmerican Scholar (www.skas.org).
Issue 12-18 (No. 692) August 29, 2012
1. KOREAN-AMERICAN “LOST COLONY”
2
1. KOREAN-AMERICAN “LOST COLONY”
The Roanoke Colony refers to the British attempt to settle a colony on Roanoke Island,
North Carolina in the late 16th century. Between 1585 and 1587, several groups
attempted to establish a colony, but either abandoned the settlement or died out. Their
fate is still unknown and the once-colony is known as "The Lost Colony."
The following article by Professor Marn J. Cha of California State University Fresno is a
brief description of the life of Korean farmers in the first settlement in the continental
USA by the Koreans transmigrated from Hawaii. The article is scheduled to be
published in 2013 in "Asian Americans: An Encyclopedia of Social, Cultural and Political
Change, Xiaojian Zhao and Edward Park, Editors, ABC-CLIO publisher, Santa Barbara,
CA. It is published here with permissions from both the author and the publisher.
Photos inserted into the article are supplied by Professor Cha for the exclusive use by
SKAS and are not part of the article to be published in 2013.
Korean American Farmers in the U.S.
Marn J. Cha, Professor Emeritus of Political Science
California State University, Fresno
If one defines farmers broadly to include those farming the land as well as ones working
at farm jobs, a farm is the quintessence of the Korean U.S. immigrant history. This is
because the very first thing that spawned Koreans’ emigration to America was an
opportunity for them to work as farmhands at Hawaii sugar plantations. Between 1902
and 1905, under contract with the Hawaii Sugar Planters Association, some 7000
Koreans came to Hawaii to work Hawaii sugar plantations (Patterson 1988, 6). Making a
living as farmhands continued from Hawaii to the mainland as 2000 of the 7000 Korean
Hawaii immigrants transmigrated to the West Coast, settling mostly in California (Cha
2010, 41).
The Koreans’ farm life in California began with picking oranges in Riverside County
orchards in Southern California from 1903 on (Lee 2003, 137). About the same time
Central California’s growing raisin industry drew Koreans to San Joaquin Valley
vineyards to pick grapes (Cha 2010, 6). They worked a wide swath of Central San
Joaquin Valley, Stockton, Fresno, Visalia, Dinuba, Delano, and Reedley. A bit later,
from 1913 on, rice farming by Koreans flourished in California’s rice country, in Northern
California. Until the fatal 1920 flood, Koreans were growing rice in Colusa, Glenn and
Yuba Counties (Lee 1990, 173-177).
3
How about the modern day Korean farmers? In Southern California alone, we have
three date farms, three bee growers, one ranch, one bean sprout grower, one radish
farmer, one acorn grower, one non-profit church retreat/farm, four organic lettuce
growers, six organic and non-organic tree fruit farmers. In Central California, we have
another non-profit church retreat/ farm growing a variety of tree fruits (Radio Korea
2010, 207). We have Yu Farm in Earlimart, California specializing in growing organic
brown rice (Yu 2012). Jason Lee, a third generation Lee Jai Soo rice farm family,
operates 15,000 acre rice fields in Maxwell, California, north of Sacramento (Cha 2010,
173). Several Koreans operate organic farms in New Jersey and Florida (Whang 2012).
Dinuba Korean Presbyterian Church Members of 1930s. The Church was built in 1912.
The building was later razed and a monument is built on the site.
4
In Hawaii sugar plantations, the Koreans lived a slave master driven indentured life.
Nonetheless, most of Hawaii Koreans were Christians, as many Hawaii immigrant
recruits were drawn from Korean Christian community. In every single Hawaiian island
where the Koreans worked, they built churches (Yi 2003, 68). Churches gave them
solace and relief from their hard life. Also, a passion to free their homeland from
Japanese colonialism (1910-1945) helped them endure their hardship. The Riverside
Koreans had a strong patriotic leader, Ahn Chang Ho, with them. Ahn Chang Ho
organized his fellow Koreans to negotiate terms of their contract with employers, learn
English, go to church and self-govern their community.
Often disrupting Korean farm laborers were natural disasters that inflicted damages to
California citrus industry. For example, in 1914, a severe frost wiped off almost all of
Riverside orchards. This had driven many Koreans to leave Riverside and take up nonfarm jobs in cities. Central San Joaquin Valley Koreans evidently led a poor but stable
life because, in Reedley and Dinuba cemeteries, we have 237 Korean graves (Cha
2010, 173). This many Koreans lived and died in California Central Valley. Their church
built in Reedley in 1938 is still standing. So are house remnants they lived in and labor
camp/boarding houses that functioned as Korean singles’ dorm as well as their
employment agency.
There were also itinerant Korean farm laborers who never stayed put at one place too
long and moved on to next places where harvest seasons began. They called
themselves ‘flying geese’ traversing as a work gang up and down the West Coast (Park
2006, 26)
One is mistaken, however, if he/she thinks that they must have lived an idyllic country
life with a plenty of fresh air and food on table. Fresh air was mostly a sizzling 100 plus
degree heat. Wages were meager, 10 or 15 cents an hour. Rice and pickles were their
staple diet (Choy 1979, 99). A study of Central California Korean farm laborers of 1929s
and 1930s cites a tragic statistics. Of little over 300 Koreans, one case of death of
malnutrition, four cases of suicide and three cases of homicide (Cha 2010, 60). It tells
volumes about what their lives must have been like.
Central California Korean farm story is not all bleak, however. There are success
stories. Harry Kim and Charles H. Kim ran a successful nursery and pioneered in
growing ‘fuzzless’ nectarine in Reedley, California. They ran their business under a
trade name, Kim Brothers, Inc. (not related). They made millions from their fruit tree
farming, the first sustaining Korean millionaires, who contributed much to the Korean
independence movement.
5
Kim Brothers Office Building. It still stands in the city of Reedley, CA
Han Si Dae of Delano, California is another success story. Penniless Han walked into
Delano local Bank of America branch and asked the bank manager to loan him some
money to farm. The manager asked if he had any collateral—house, car or land. Han
said none of that. He showed him his bare two hands and said, “this is my guarantee”
(Cha 2010, 159). Eventually, his audacity got the bank manager to loan him one
thousand dollars in 1923. With it, he leased 90 acres of land. Some twenty years later, it
turned 250-acre farmland worth half a million dollars.
We also have Leo Song and Kim Yong Jeung who founded the first Korean-run jobber,
K & S Jobbers in 1925. They brokered fruit wholesale in downtown Los Angeles. Kim
Yong Jeung was intimately involved with Reedley’s Kim Brothers, Inc. and Leo Song
ran Song Orchard and Packing House in Sultana, Dinuba’s next door, in Central
California (Cha 2010, 88). K & S Jobbers exemplified a fine Korean agri-business
partnership, as did Reedley’s Kim Brothers, Inc.
Korean rice farming has a success story too. What made rice farming by Koreans
possible was so-called 10 percent deal. A landowner provided a capital poor farmer with
land, seed and equipment. The farmer or essentially a sharecropper kept 10 percent of
crop and the rest went to the landowner. The sharecropper was able to use his 10
percent share as his surety to borrow money from the bank. With borrowed money, he
6
leased more land and equipment. This way Kim Chong Lim grew rice and barley on
10,000 acres. He made a fortune. This earned him an appellation as ‘rice king’. The
fatal flood of 1920 decimated just about every Korean’s rice field including Kim Chong
Lim’s (Cha 2010, 163).
Another story that needs be told is a humanitarian deed by Yu Farm in Earlimart,
California. In 1990, Yu Farm’s owner and founder, Howard and Soo Yu, invited five
Chinese Koreans from Chinese Jilin Province to their farm to live on their farmland,
work and learn about modern agricultural technology. In 2000, they invited six Koreans
from North Korea to do the same and arranged for them to hold a seminar with
agronomists at University of California, Davis. Yu Farm donated potato, cotton, almond,
soybean, and barley seeds to North Koreans. So, they may take them home and plant
them to augment their hard-pressed food production (Yu 2012).
Modern day Korean farms are virtually all family owned and operated. They are up
against corporate farms but they find their niche in specialty products. For example,
vegetables and fruits catering to the taste of Asians and fresh organic produce one sells
at local farmer’s market. Unlike Japanese, for Koreans succeeding forebears’ farm
career is rare. The modern day Koreans’ agricultural ventures may yield a sustaining
Korean farm tradition. For now at least, much of Korean American farm stories is
historical.
Reference List
Cha, Marn J. Koreans in Central California (1903-1957): A Study of Settlement and
Transnational Politics. Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto and Plymouth, UK;
University Press of America, 2010.
Choy, Bong Youn. Koreans in America. Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1979.
7
Lee, Mary Paik. Quiet Odyssey: A Pioneer Korean Woman in America. Edited by
Sucheng Chan. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1990.
Lee, Seon Ju, “Riverside e-seo-ui Dosan Ahn Chang Ho Ui Wharl-Dong” [Dosan Ahn
Chang Ho’s Activities in Riverside]. In Mi-ju Han-in Sa-hoe Wa Dong-rup Un-dong [The
Independence Movement and Its Outgrowth by Korean Americans], Seoul, Korea: BakYeoung-sa, 2003.
Park, Young. The Life and Times of a Hyphenated American. New York: iUniverse, Inc.,
2006.
Patterson, Wayne. The Korean Frontier in America: Korean Immigration to Hawaii,
1896-1910. Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press, 1988.
Radio Korea Eop-so-rok, 2011-2012 [Radio Korea Business Directory, 2011-2012], Los
Angeles: Radio Korea, 2010.
Whang Hee Cheol. Interview by Marn J. Cha, Notes, Fresno, Ca. June 19, 2012.
Yi, Mahn Yeorl, “Mi-ji Han-in Gyo-hoe-wa Dong-rip Un-dong” [Korean Churches and the
Independence Movemnt]. In Miju Han-in-ui Min-jok Un-dong [ Korean Americans and
their Struggle for National Independence]. Seoul, Korea: He-an 2003.
Yu, Howard and Soo. Interview by Marn J. Cha, Notes, San Francisco, Ca. June 26,
2012
Issue 12-18 (No. 692) August 29, 2012