INTERVIEW 'My father was idealist and optimist'
Ralph Ahn, the youngest son of independence activist and reformer Ahn Chang-ho, holds his father's last photo taken before his death in his home in Mission Hills in L.A. on Feb. 22. / Korea Times photo by Park Jin-hai
This is the second in a series of articles highlighting Korea's overseas independence fighters to mark the centennial of the March 1 Independence Movement ― ED.
Ahn Chang-ho's youngest son recalls patriotic father, his legacy
By Park Jin-hai
Los Angeles, CA ― Ralph Ahn, 92, the youngest son and only surviving child of independence activist, educator and politician Ahn Chang-ho, better known by his pen name Dosan, has little memory of his father.
The youngest child of the activist was unable to meet his father while he was alive, because Ahn had been preoccupied all his life with fulfilling his lifetime mission ― Korea's independence from Japanese colonial rule.
“My siblings have told me he was a good father though,” Ralph Ahn said during a recent interview with The Korea Times at his home in Mission Hills in California. “He was always busy traveling but he always talked to them about love, love for the country. He always preached be truthful. Communicate accurately. That was very important.” Ralph Ahn lives there with his wife and daughter.
He was born in 1926 in the Ahn family's California home while his father was traveling in China. Ahn Chang-ho was a key member of Korea's provisional government in Shanghai, which was established in 1919 on the heels of the March 1 Independence Movement.
He was arrested in China in connection with independence fighter Yun Bong-gil who set off a bomb to kill a high-ranking Japanese official in Shanghai in 1932. Ahn served four years in prison, but after his release he was arrested again. Due to frequent imprisonment and torture, his health deteriorated, eventually leading to his death in 1938.
It was only in 1963 when his youngest son finally connected with his father, who had been buried in the Mangwoori Public Cemetery, for the first time. Ahn was honored posthumously with the Order of Merit for National Foundation by the then Park Chung-hee government the previous year.
Living without his father in the United States, the onus of taking care of the family was on his mother's shoulder. Her eldest brother Phillip also helped out.
“We resented that the pressure was so hard on our mother Helen. She had to raise five kids, her English was very limited, but she had to do housework, work at laundries and hospitals.
“But the fact that they never complained and that she always stressed father's work was very important kept us going. We were living in poverty, but I was happy, because I had the support of the family. All the older siblings and mother, they took care of me.”
Although he has no memory of his father, he does vividly recall the patriotic mood of the Korean American immigrant community.
“When I was young, there were many Korean meetings. I heard them singing the national anthem and a lot of people were crying. Some were very proud, patriotic, and others were in tears. It was the tune of Auld Lang Syne, a Scottish folksong about remembering old friends. These people remembering their country, that's what brought them to tears,” he said.
“Even though I was young, I sensed the patriotism in the Korean community here. It was obvious they loved Korea.”
Prior to his birth, the house was always bustling with young people and it was a familiar scene for Ahn Chang-ho to be arguing and disagreeing with his friends until 3 o' clock in the morning.
His father would bring people home, when there was enough food to feed them. His mother would go to a Jewish grocery store to buy salted fish, so the guests could eat this with rice.
“He was such an idealist and optimist,” Ralph Ahn said. “My parents came over to the United States to get an education in teaching so that they could go back and bring Korea into the modern world. He knew that the national character of Korea should be strong. Korea had to be strong with truth, integrity and love. That was a great motivator.”
What has been less known he says was his mother's work.
“Father regarded her as his comrade in every way,” he said. Helen complimented Chang-ho's patriotic spirit, giving her hard earned money to support her husband's work as an activist and reformer. She was the first president of the Korean Patriotic Women's Association in 1919.
“My mother was a small petite woman but very strong. I don't know if she was naturally strong or she had to be because of the demands of supporting her husband. There was no doubt she loved and admired him. Everything implies that we had to live to support my father's work,” Ralph said.
When his father came back from Korea and said he needed a scholar named Lee Kap for the independence movement ― because he was an educated man who could write and keep producing news articles ― it was his mother who provided the money to bring him to the United States.
“When he got to New York, he was sick so they turned him back. So all the money my mother gave him didn't work. But, this was what they would do. They needed a man of this kind of ability for the independence movement here in the United States. So they were willing to sacrifice the money to bring him here,” he said.
His mother passed away in 1969 at the L.A. home. In 2008, she was awarded the National Medal for National Foundation, fifth class, for her efforts in the independence movement.
Ralph said he has worked to bolster his father's legacy for all his life.
He said he wouldn't even daydream about achieving what his father did. “I couldn't match my father's intellect or spirit. It was unusual. His intellect and spirit and his devotion, I wouldn't even try to compare myself with him.”
Whenever he sees his father's photo taken before his death, he said he feels “admiration.” “I admired him. How he could be so motivated for his work. I could never live up to him.”