Legacy of Ahn Chang-ho, KNA revisited

By Park Jin-hai

The independence movement in the United States went hand in hand with the history of Korean immigrants to America.

In December 1902, when Korea's sovereignty was threatened by Imperial Japan, many Koreans looking for safety and to fulfill their dreams departed Incheon Port to set foot on Hawaii. Most of them worked at sugar cane plantations and there were some ginseng salesmen who followed their Chinese partners.

But, among the earliest groups of those early immigrants to the United States were also reform-minded young people eager to make their home country a stronger, modern and democratic nation. Phillip Jaisohn and Ahn Chang-ho were two of those ambitious people.

Philip Jaisohn, also known by his Korean name Seo Jae-pil, was the first Korean to become a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1890, five years after he arrived in San Francisco.

After becoming a medical doctor in 1893, following graduation from a medical school in the United States, Jaisohn got a call from his motherland to serve in the new cabinet, a call he accepted. He briefly served as an adviser to the king's council.

He published the newspaper “The Independent,” with its first issue in April 1896. He created the “Independence Club,” the first socio-political group in Korea. Several reform-minded figures, including Ahn and Syngman Rhee, joined the group.

Jaisohn educated Korean scholars and thinkers with Western democracy and called for the establishment of parliamentary and democratic rule by the people, which drew the ire of the king. The Independence Club was dissolved and Seo was deported to the United States. Other members were imprisoned as they were accused of plotting to overthrow the king.

Ahn, who managed to avoid imprisonment, left Korea for the United States in 1902 with his wife Helen. Working many menial jobs and studying, he saw his compatriots being treated like slaves, working over 10 hours a day and suffering discrimination.

When he saw Korean ginseng salesmen fighting over sales turf in the middle of the street in San Francisco, Ahn created the first Korean-American community, Chinmokhoe or Friendship Association, in 1903.

The early Korean immigrants' independence movement took place in San Francisco. Ahn launched the Gongnip Hyuphoe, the first Korean political organization in the United States, in 1905. It later grew into the National Association in 1909 and the Korea National Association (KNA) in 1910.

After Japan's annexation of Korea in 1910, the KNA's North American branch executed the self-government policy divided into legislation, judicial and executive.

It was also the place that Gongnip Hyuphoe member Chun(Jeon) Myung-woon and Daedong Bogukhoe member Chang In-hwan assassinated Durham Stevens in 1908, after the former American diplomat and lobbyist for Japan was quoted in a newspaper as saying that the common people of Korea were benefiting from the increasing Japanese presence and that Korea was not ready for liberation.

“What has been very unfortunate was the fact that those Korean immigrants left the country as Joseon citizens in 1903 and 1904, but as Korea lost its sovereignty in 1910, they had lost their motherland and had no land to go back to,” said Min Pyong-yong, executive director of the Korean American History Museum in Los Angeles and author of the book “Korean American Patriot's Dream.”

“They knew the only way they could return to their homeland was by recovering its sovereignty.”

Korean immigrants in Hawaii started moving to the mainland in the 1910s. Some of them went to farming cities in the interior and others came to Los Angeles. Ahn's family also moved to Riverside in 1904 and established the first Korea Town on the mainland, called “Pachappa Camp,” which had been a compound for Chinese railroad workers. It provided an ideal place for Gongnip Hyuphoe, which Ahn created to foster a sense of community among orange-picking Korean immigrants.

A few years later in 1913, a cold winter damaged the regional agriculture industry, thus there was no work for Koreans in the orchards. Ahn and many others moved to Los Angeles.

After the March 1 Independence Movement, Ahn became a key member in the founding of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea established in Shanghai in 1919.

“From the late 1920s, Los Angeles served as the epicenter of the independence movement in the United States. The KNA headquarters moved to Los Angeles in 1938 and until the 1945 liberation of Korea, the KNA here was the bastion of the independence movement,” Min said.

Ahn and his KNA were widely known for their education and enlightenment campaigns, believing they could foster independence and national strength. But the KNA also had an influence on the armed attacks of Korean independence fighters in China.

While Gongnip Hyuphoe member Chun was staying in China, seeking shelter from Japanese retaliation for his assassination of Stevens, he was known to have met young independence activists and influenced them. This included An Jung-geun, who later set off bombs to kill Japanese statesman Ito Hirobumi, and Yi Jae-myeong, who stabbed the notorious pro-Japanese collaborator Ye Wan-yong.

Ahn was arrested for the first time in 1909 in connection with An Jung-geun's assassination of Ito Hirobumi. Since then, he was arrested four more times and tortured by the Japanese authorities. Due to complications from imprisonment and torture, Ahn died on March 10, 1938.

Although Ahn and Korean immigrants in southern California played important roles in their crusade for independence, only a few historical sites have been preserved. The KNA Memorial Foundation and Rosedale cemetery are two places one can follow the journeys of many unsung Korean-American patriots.

The KNA building on Jefferson Blvd in Los Angeles was built in 1938, with the donations of Korean immigrants. The current KNA Memorial Foundation is the one that was recovered to its original state in 2003.

The original KNA building in San Francisco was leveled off in 1935 for the construction of Bay Bridge. The Young Korean Academy building Ahn established in Los Angeles in 1915 had been where the LA Department of Water and Power is located. Ahn's family house in Los Angeles, originally located southwest of the University of Southern California campus, was purchased and incorporated by the university during its campus expansion in the 1980s. It was moved to its current location in 2004 to house the Korean Studies Institute.

Ralph Ahn, the youngest son and only surviving descendant of Ahn Chang-ho, said people should remember those Koreans who fought for the country in the U.S. “A hundred years ago, Korean people declared independence. A hundred years ago, there was a provisional government. These ancestors did that at the risk of being imprisoned, wounded or killed. They were motivated by the vision of future generations such as they are today,” he said. “So that future generations of today as they are living their lives in liberty and pursuit of happiness their ancestors sacrificed in vision… Be grateful that it will make you stronger.”