A long and arduous journey went into writing a new book about the history of Korean immigrants to the state. Seri Luangphinith, a University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo English professor, has published The Paths We Cross: The Lives and Legacies of Koreans on the Big Island, a book about the history of Korean immigrants to Hawaiʻi Island. The hope for this book is to connect Koreans with a hometown they never knew. Trying to give the history back to a largely overlooked ethnic group, this book aims to make that history accessible for people who can no longer read or speak the language.
Six-year journey
When the last French professor left UH Hilo six years ago, Luangphinith, surveyed students to find which language they would most like to take. The answer was unexpected—Korean was the top choice.
Luangphinith began working with a private Korean language teacher and uncovered more about local Korean history. The teacher had a classmate who did calligraphy in Korea, which sparked the idea to create an art exhibition.
“My job was to put all of it together, but the more I dug the more stuff I found. This led to more people and more stories. So, what we had originally envisioned to be just an exhibition catalogue turned into this book. Now it’s about 200 pages worth of history,” said Luangphinith.
Waves of Korean immigrants to Hawaiʻi Island
The history of South Korea’s relationship with Hawaiʻi dates all the way back to the first president of South Korea, Syngman Rhee. He had a charcoal factory up in Mountain View on Hawaiʻi Island and was sending money back to the resistance against the Japanese occupation of South Korea.
“Nobody knew about that,” exclaimed Luangphinith. “Here was a major historical figure being on the Big Island and nobody knew about it.”
The Paths We Cross: The Lives and Legacies of Koreans on the Big Island is now available for purchase at the UH Hilo Bookstore and the East Hawaiʻi Cultural Center.
For more on Luangphinith’s journey, read the full article at UH Hilo Stories.
—Excerpted from a UH Hilo Stories article written by Mikayla Toninato, a junior completing a semester at UH Hilo through the National Student Exchange program
