The Korean Frontier in America: Immigration to Hawaii, 1896-1910 (review)

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS201 The Korean Frontier in America: Immigration to Hawaii, 18961910 , by Wayne Patterson. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1988. xii + 274 pp. Maps, appendix, bibliography, glossary, index. $30. The Korean Frontier in America is a more interesting and more important book than its somewhat misleading title suggests. Yes, it does deal specifically with the immigration of Koreans to Hawaii around the turn of the century. But to his credit, Patterson has looked beyond this narrow topic to some much more significant issues concerning the U.S.-Japan-Korea nexus. Seven thousand Koreans immigrated to Hawaii between 1903 and 1906. This is a very small number when compared to the fifty thousand Chinese and the nearly one hundred thousand Japanese that made the same journey during the years preceding the annexation of Korea by Japan. Though these Korean immigrants and their descendents did make important contributions to Hawaii, their story can hardly be considered more than a footnote to U.S. or Korean history. Patterson uses the question of Korean immigration to Hawaii as the lens through which to examine several other problems: the official and unofficial relations between the U.S. and Korea; the immigration policies of the Hawaii plantation owners; the functioning or lack thereof of the Korean government; the relationship between Japan and Korea; and finally, the relationship between the U.S. and Japan. The immigration of Koreans to Hawaii is an interesting and useful angle from which to view these problems; and The Korean Frontier in America is really more concerned with these larger issues. It is unfortunate that there will be those who will not consult this book because of its apparently narrow focus. In short, this is an ambitious, though only partly successful work. I found much of what I read to be insightful and certainly a welcome addition to the body of literature about the final years of the Yi dynasty. I do, however, have several concerns about this book. The Korean Frontier in America is a rewritten and highly edited version of Patterson's voluminous (737 pages) doctoral dissertation (University of Pennsylvania, 1977). Obviously to reduce a manuscript of that length to 273 pages requires that large amounts of material be paraphrased or deleted. This explains in part the too frequent notes such as "unsupported," "needs documentation," or "unsubstantiated" that I kept making to myself as I read this work. When I turned to Patterson's dissertation, I found that many of the documentation and organization problems that I found in The Korean Frontier were not present in the original dissertation. There is no doubt that the published version is impressively more readable as a result of the editing, but it cannot help but suffer from the reduction of information, discussion, and documentation . This review is not the place to make a detailed comparison between the two volumes, but I would say that Patterson's dissertation is worth looking at in addition to the published version of his work. Beyond this general concern I must mention two specific items to which I took exception: Patterson's view of Horace Allen, and his overreliance on Western sources and representation of late Yi dynasty Korea. 202BOOK REVIEWS There is no doubt that Horace Allen acted independently and often against the instructions of his superiors throughout his tenure as U.S. Minister to Korea. But I found Patterson's analysis to be filled with excessive acrimony and accusations . I do not take exception to his argument that Allen went beyond his written instructions, and even had knowledge of "illegal" matters. But I find it odd that Patterson is so incredulous that activities and attitudes such as these took place. An examination of other appointed diplomats of this period would make Allen's behavior seem tame and highly proper by comparison. And it is also abundantly clear that the governments of Hawaii and the United States themselves acted very differently (and often in violation of established laws and practices) in regards to the immigration of Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese to Hawaii than they did to the immigration of those same peoples to the mainland United States. Why should Allen be held to a higher standard? Patterson...