A Mother in Hawaii, Dreaming of Her Homeland's Independence

 

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A Mother in Hawaii, Dreaming of Her Homeland's Independence

By Kim Seong-eun

In the distant land of Hawaii, under the hot sun, one woman lived her whole life with the map of her homeland in her heart. She was a mother who raised eight children, a teacher who taught Hangul to the children of a foreign land, and at the same time, a fighter who fought for her country's independence. The life of Susan Chun is a grand testament to how the ‘roots’ of the Korean people were protected and able to blossom across the Pacific.

Susan Chun was born on May 23, 1894, in Pyongyang, the youngest of four children. After becoming a member of the first graduating class of Pyongyang’s Jinmyeong Girls' School, she left to study in Seoul, a move made possible by her older brother, a doctor who had studied Western medicine in Japan. After studying at Seoul’s Jinmyeong Girls' Middle School, she transferred to Ewha Hakdang (Ewha School), graduating from its secondary school course in 1912. After graduation, she married K. Sung Lyu, but soon after, her husband left to study at Boston University in the United States. In his absence, she gave birth to their first daughter, Ok-hui (Stella), in 1914.

Two years later, holding the hand of her two-year-old daughter, she crossed the Pacific Ocean. Her destination was not the U.S. mainland where her husband was, but Hawaii. What must have been in the heart of twenty-two-year-old Susan Chun as she arrived at the port of Honolulu on July 19, 1916, to start a new life with her young child? It was a practical choice, as her older sister, Jeon Su-myeong, was already living there as a picture bride. But it was also a resolute decision to forge a life with her own strength. The purpose written on her passport, ‘Study in Hawaii,’ was perhaps a reflection of the dream she held for self-reliance and growth.

Upon arriving in Hawaii, she worked as a teacher at the Korean language school run by St. Elizabeth's Episcopal Church. The following year, her husband came over from the mainland, and their second daughter, Ok-in (Ellen), was born. However, the reunion in a foreign land was not to last. When she finally put an end to her difficult marriage, she had to stand alone as a mother of two daughters.

But she did not collapse. Rather, with this as a turning point, her life began to move beyond the fence of the ‘individual’ and toward the ‘nation.’ In 1919, when the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea was established in Shanghai, she contributed to the independence movement by purchasing bonds worth $15. She joined the Korean Women's Relief Society, an organization founded by Korean women in Hawaii, and took the lead in raising funds to send to the provisional government and to help the struggling families of patriots back home.

In 1920, her life entered a new chapter when she started a new family with Lee Dong-bin (Henry Dongbin Lee). She gave birth to six more children with him—three sons and three daughters (Joseph, Mary, Samuel, Arthur, Dorothy, and Rose)—becoming a mother to a total of eight. One can imagine her changing diapers with one hand while creating Korean language materials with the other. The same voice that sang Korean lullabies to her children would have delivered passionate speeches for independence to her fellow Koreans. For Susan Chun, housework, childcare, and the independence movement were never separate. Her entire life was a single, sacred struggle to protect ‘Korea’ in a foreign land.

She was desperate to instill a Korean spirit in her children. She sent her daughters Dorothy and Rose to a YWCA Korean dance class and consistently participated in the multicultural events hosted by the Honolulu Academy of Arts, playing the janggu (hourglass drum) herself while her daughters performed. Her grandson, Timothy Choy, recalled her this way:

“Grandma Susan Chun was a very active person. I remember when I was young, she taught my aunts Korean folk dances and how to play the janggu, and had them perform at events like Korean Day.”

After moving to downtown Honolulu in 1939, she attended the Korean Christian Church founded by Syngman Rhee and worked as a member of the Dongjihoe (Comrades' Society) with her husband. From 1942 until liberation, she served as the president of the Korean Women's Relief Society. In 1944, she became the editor-in-chief of the Dongjihoe's official publication, The Pacific Weekly. As its sole female editor-in-chief, she used her pen to awaken the national spirit and strengthen the will for independence.

Her service did not stop after liberation. During the Korean War, she took the lead in welcoming Republic of Korea naval ships to Honolulu, and in 1952, she was recognized for her efforts with the Order of Merit for National Foundation from President Syngman Rhee.

Though she may never have stepped on the soil of an independent homeland again, what she left behind were the strong roots of the Korean people, firmly planted in Hawaii. In the dance steps of her children, in the resonance of the Korean language she taught, and in the fervent hope contained in the independence funds she sent, Susan Chun’s dream is still alive.