November 2, 1886 -US approved Korean Immigration.
Hawaii was annexed by the U.S. in 1898 and became a territory of the U. S. in 1900.
In 1896, the first Korean businessmen arrived in Hawaii, two merchants with the surname “Kum”,
probably Kim.
November 5, 1902 -Korean emperor Kojong recognized the approval of Korean Immigration to US.
Koreans aboard the S.S. Gaelic came to work for the Hawaiian sugar plantations as “contract laborers”.
Japanese plantation workers were striking for higher wages. Plantation owners were recommended to
seek Korean people as “strike breakers”. Hiring these Koreans in 1902 was illegal because of the 1885
Alien Contract Labor Law, the 1900 Organic Act and other policies regarding hiring foreign laborers.
In 1903, the first major group of Korean immigrants arrived on January 13, 1903 and set foot on Peir 2.
This was marked by the arrival of the SS Gaelic from Inchon, Korea. During the next two and a half years, sixty-five boatloads of Korean laborers landed in Honolulu with 7,843 passengers. Upon their arrival, the immigrants were scattered to plantations on Oahu and the Big Island. Between 1911 and 1924, many of the bachelor Korean immigrants sent home for "picturebrides." Eight hundred Korean women arrived.Subsequently, this helped to stabilize the Korean population in Hawaii
February 26, 1903 -Evening bulletin in Hawaii reported "…They appear to be hard workers,
yet they are paid the least … would work ten hours from dawn to sunset for sixty-nine
cents a day."
The majority of the early immigrants who arrived at the Hawaiian sugar plantations were young bachelors,
largely uneducated, and engaged in semi-skilled or unskilled occupations.
The first 7000 immigrants who arrived in Hawaii between 1903 and 1905 are referred to as the first wave.
After the Choson Dynasty lost sovereignty to Japan, immigration to Hawaii could not continue. The Japanese
ruler did not like to lose manpower or to allow Hawaii to become the center of a Korean independence movement.
Only about one in ten of the Korean immigrants between 1903 and 1905 were women, nearly all of those
accompanying their husbands.......were virtually no single women for the bachelors to marry.....we do
know that most of the picture brides came from the Kyongsang Province in southeastern Korea....includes
the port city of Pusan, Taegu and Masan.....Reasons for the picture brides – Before the second wave, the
number of Korean men outnumbered Korean women. The Korean men insisted on marrying Korean women only.
Therefore they had to send pictures of themselves and have arranged marriages.
There were nearly 5,000 bachelors and most of them remained as bachelors.
Japan annexes Korea in 1910.Tension grows between Koreans and Japanese in Hawai'i. By this date, about 1,000
immigrants had returned to Korea, many ill and going home to die. But after annexation, with the immigration
ban lifted, more Koreans leave their homeland, especially wives and children of laborers.
Because of the unbalanced sex ratio of Korean immigrants (ten males to every female), the exchange of
photographs between prospective grooms in Hawaii and brides in Korea took place for an arranged
marriage. 1,100 picture brides arrived between 1910 and 1924. The picture brides were generally young
(seventeen years old on the average) and from rural villages in the southeastern provinces of Korea
1925-1930 • Wahiawa becomes a "Korea Town," with Schofield Barracks adding varied employment
opportunities to plantation jobs. The Korean American Club is formed in 1925.
The country's Korean-American population is now more than 1
million. In Hawaii, the census reports more than 23,000 Korean-
Americans or as many as 100,000 if those of part-Korean ancestry
are included.
Great majority of Korean immigrants had lived in the city rather than the countryside before immigrating to Hawaii....
Koreans left the plantations faster than any other ethnic group in the history of Hawaii
Kim chee grows in popularity
1939 • Joe Kim begins to manufacture and market kim chee on O'ahu under the Diamond Kim Chee label; on the Big Island, Hannah Kim Liu opens the Kohala Kim Chee business at about the same time. This popularizes the Korean cabbage relish, previously unknown beyond Korean family tables
The second wave occurred a half century later in the 1960s when U.S. immigration policy opened up to the Korean and other Asian people.The second wave of the Korean immigrants is fading away. Their sons and
daughters are maturing and rapidly becoming Americanized. Their Korean identity is getting dim. Is this
integration a good thing?
Today, Korean Americans rank as the fourth largest Asian group in the US with a population of over one
million, of which 150,000 are Korean adoptees. The state with the largest Korean American population is
California with 33%, followed New York with 12%. Washington State currently has approximately 43,600
Korean Americans, of which, 67°/a reside in Seattle area and 19% live in the Tacoma area.