[Opinion] Komericans

`You can earn a lot of money if you work hard since there is no winter in Hawaii. It is like a paradise on the earth, warm and fine all around the year,` said officials at the Hawaii Cane Growers Organization in the early 1900s when they came to Korea to recruit Korean laborers. For Koreans long suffering from poverty and cold, the advertisement must have sounded luring, but the number of applicants was smaller than expected. It was not easy for Koreans to leave their country, relatives, friends and ancestors` graveyards. When the freezing cold swept across the country in 1901, people began to file an application. The first group of labor immigrants comprising 102 people landed on Honolulu, Hawaii on January 13 1903. The island, however, was not a paradise they expected, but a land of hardship where they shed too many tears.

▷The number of Korean Americans, which was around 10,000 at the time of the nation`s independence, soared after the Korean War to top 100,000 in the 1960s. According to official statistics, the number now reaches 1.07 million, and is in fact estimated to be around 2 million. Korean Americans, marking the 100th year anniversary yesterday, must have a lot of thoughts and feelings in their mind. Koreans were facing extreme poverty, a do-or-die situation, in the 20th century. Many left for Manchuria and Vladivostok during the Japanese colonial rule and later for Germany to work as miners and nurses. Those left for America, who had nothing but themselves to rely on, eventually settled in the country as a part of diverse ethnicity after long hardworking.

▷Like others living abroad, Korean Americans have always been missing their country. When the country was under Japanese colonial rule, Koreans in America mobilized a lot of money for those working for independence of the country. National leaders like Ahn Chang-ho and Park Yong-man were in fact from Korean Americans. Korean Americans have been there, sharing joy and pain with their mother land throughout the military rule, economic crisis and the Korea-Japan World Cup more recently. They are valuable assets of the country who have Korean DNA. It was long before that we treated Koreans with foreign nationality as traitors.

▷The role of Komerians will become even more important because they are in better position to understand both things Korean and American. The second and third generations are increasingly called bananas, referring to people who have Korean looks but think like white Americans. Yet, even they cannot be free from the cultural and historic identity shared by Koreans. For the Korean community not to become an isolated group in America, they need to get along with people there. Our policy toward overseas Koreans must be in line with the view of expanding the presence of Koreans throughout the world.

Hong Chan-shik, Editorial Writer, chansik@donga.com