Presentation: San Francisco Beginnings of Korean American Immigration

Learn about the origins of Korean immigration on the mainland United States with researcher Rosemarie Nahm.

Koreans have immigrated to the U.S. for over 130 years. Yet, many still do not know that the earliest Korean community on the mainland of the U.S. was formed right here in San Francisco. A very small number of Korean immigrants, mostly students and merchants, started to land in San Francisco as early as 1885. Then, from the early 1900s to 1940, as Japan rose to power in Korea and forcefully colonized the country, Koreans of diverse backgrounds fled their homeland and landed in San Francisco. These new arrivals consisted of students, political activists, picture brides and wives and children of husbands and fathers already in the U.S. Though this nascent Korean immigrant community was tiny in comparison to the Chinese, Japanese or the Filipinos, it was well organized and cohesive.

Presenter Rosemarie Nahm is a lawyer turned independent researcher who has been studying Asian immigration history since 2015. She has researched the shared history of all Asian immigrants at Angel Island, including Koreans, and from 2018 to 2019, she served as a member of the content development team for the Angel Island Immigration Museum. In 2020, she curated her own exhibit at the Oakland Asian Cultural Museum focused on the San Francisco Beginnings of Korean Immigration. Through her presentation, she will provide a rare glimpse into the lives of these early San Francisco Koreans, their community and how they supported each other in a time marked by extreme hostilities and discrimination against Asians.

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