하와이 빅아일랜드의 초기 한인 비석연구 -비석을 통해 본 이민자들의 생애사 복원-

Abstract

The gravestones of the first-Generation Korean Immigrants in Hawaii are found as the most vivid and important historical records that give a glimpse of their life and death. The purpose of this paper is to find out what messages the their gravestones tried to convey by analysing the gravestone inscriptions. This paper pays attention to the gravestones, which were mainly erected during the first half of the 20th century in the Big Island of Hawaii. During the 10 days of the fieldwork conduced in July, 2019 at four different cemeteries, 155 gravestones were investigated. They include 136 gravestones from the Alae cemetery in Hilo, 10 in the old Holualoa Coffee Farm, 6 from the Kona Captain Cook area, and 3 from the Kona Kohala Baptist Church. While there are many studies focusing on the first-Generation Korean Immigrants in Hawaii depending on various forms historical documents and life histories, few studies have paid attention to examining their life and death stories based on the gravestones. The messages engraved on the gravestones informs us of the dead person’s birth to death dates, hometown, religion, occupation, age, family, love, longing for the motherland and so forth. This paper uses these data to explore their life trajectories by matching the data from other official records, including The list of the passengers of Korean ships to Hawaii, 1903-1905, the list of donations to one of the Korean independent activists called Ahn Jung-geun, and the list of passport issuance. Despite the importance of the gravestones as a form of historical records, they are still being damaged and disappearing. Special attention needs to be paid to the gravestones in order to preserve and examine the precious records left by the unknown independent movement fighters from Hawaii and at the same time, the pioneers Korean immigrants to the United States in the early 20th century.