The dead bodies of Koreans killed in a massacre after the Great Kanto Earthquake in Japan in September 1923. Koreans who were forced to work in coal mines and compelled to appear in promotional pictures by Japanese mining firms.
The faces of Koreans who arrived in Hawaii on the S.S. Gaelic in 1903 to work on sugarcane farms. "Picture brides" who went to Hawaii with only a single picture of their future husband. A gathering of Koreans at a college near Los Angeles right after the March 1 anti-Japanese uprising in 1919.
Hyunsil Cultural Studies has published a pictorial record documenting the life and death of Koreans who migrated to the U.S. and Japan, compiled by the Overseas Koreans Foundation. The two volumes deal with 100 years of migration to Japan and the U.S. respectively and the Japan volume is the first pictorial record published here of a sometimes forgotten history, although pictures of early Korean emigrants to the U.S. are sometimes published by Korean American organizations.
Divided into periods, the books contain 544 rare photos of Koreans in Japan and 448 of Koreans in the U.S. The Overseas Koreans Foundation and Hyunsil spent more than a year gathering the scattered records held by individuals and organizations. The books accompany them with rare written documents such as military training certificates and alcohol distribution tickets. The pictures in the Japan volume came from individuals, the History Museum of J-Koreans, the Commission on Forced Mobilization under the Japanese Imperialism Republic of Korea and other organizations. Most of them are published here for the first time. Historian Lee Min-won stressed the importance of the rare Japanese pictures.
The migration of Koreans to the U.S. started with some 100 who headed for employment at sugarcane farms in Hawaii in December 1902. Today, some 3 million Koreans live in the U.S. Migration to Japan started with students who went to Japan to get a modern education since the Ikimaru ferry regularly connected the two countries in September 1905. Millions of Koreans were forced into service by the Japanese during World War II.
