Disease, Sovereignty, and Extra-Territoriality in early Korean-American Communities: The Case of a 1907 Petition to the Board of Health of Hawai'i

In February of 1909, in the first page section of the Sin Hankukbo (New Korea Daily), a Korean language newspaper published in San Francisco by the renowned Korean nationalist leader An Ch’angho, carried a small article noting the return of a Korean worker in Hawaii to Korea.  The man in question had been found to be sick with leprosy and the Japanese consulate in Honolulu had successfully petitioned the Board of Health of Hawaii for the return of the said Korean patient and also one Japanese leprosy patient to their respective homelands.  The article noted that although the status of the Korean returnee was pitiable, when thinking of national affairs, it was all the more regrettable that his condition was kept secret from the rest of the Korean community at large.

Taking place four years after Korea’s demotion to Japan’s protectorate in 1905, the return of the Korean worker was the result of active lobbying by Frederick Wakeman, an American Methodist minister who had spearheaded Korean immigration to the U.S. beginning in 1904.  The Korean patient had been discovered during Wakeman’s inspection of the Hawaiian plantations, and he launched the petition to reassure U.S. immigration officials of the healthfulness of the newly imported Korean labor force.  However, with Korea’s loss of sovereignty in 1905, Wakeman approached the Japanese consulate in Honolulu to petition the Hawaiian Board of Health for the release of the patient.  The Japanese consulate accepted Wakeman’s request in order to display Japan’s recently acquired sovereignty over Korea and also to reassure Japan’s adherence to U.S. immigration policies.  This paper explores how sovereignty and the powers of extra-territoriality were articulated by the Korean community and the Japanese consulate through disease prevention and hygiene practices in early 20^th century Hawaii.