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He and his wife were the first Koreans to legally immigrate to the US as a married couple.[1] Ahn was a Protestant social activist who in 1907 established the later prominent Korean independence organization Shinminhoe when he returned to Korea from the US. He also established the Young Korean Academy in San Francisco in 1913,[a] and was a key founding member of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea in Shanghai in 1919. He is also one of two men believed to have written the lyrics of South Koreannational anthem, "Aegukga".
Ahn was born into an impoverished farming family during the unstable last few decades of the Joseon dynasty. He began studying at a seodang around age 8 in preparation for the gwageo, the demanding civil service examinations that determined placement in government intellectual jobs. After his father died when he was around age 11, he was raised by his grandfather.[3]
Ahn changed his name around age 10; his father also changed his name from Ahn Kyo-jin to Ahn Heung-guk.[citation needed]
In 1895, 16-year-old Ahn was disturbed by the destruction of the First Sino-Japanese War, and became determined to improve Korea. He moved to Seoul to receive a Western-style education at a Presbyterian missionary-sponsored school in Seoul run by Horace Grant Underwood and Rev. F. S. Miller called Kusehaktang.[d] He studied there for three years, converting to Christianity and working for Dr. Oliver R. Avison at Chejungwon,[citation needed] the first medical institution in Korea (now part of Yonsei University Medical Center).[5][2]
Around 1897, he joined the Independence Club and became a leader of its Pyongyang branch.[3][5] Through this short-lived club, he gave speeches to crowds of hundreds and became associated with people who would become prominent in the independence movement, including Syngman Rhee and Yun Chi-ho. He also became engaged to his future wife Helen Ahn around this time.[3][2]
He then returned to his home province of Pyeongan, and around 1899 established the Chŏmjin school,[e] the first coeducational school founded by a Korean, and the T'anp'ori Church.[3][2][f] He then decided to further his education by going to the US. He married Helen on 3 September 1902, and shortly afterwards departed for the US.[7]
Immigration to America
Ahn's original passport, numbered 52, issued by the Korean Empire on 9 August 1902, is now located in the Independence Hall of Korea.
On October 14, 1902, Ahn and his wife arrived in San Francisco.[8] They were among the first Koreans to move to the US, and the first married Korean couple to do so, with passports numbered 51 and 52.[1][9] In order to learn how to speak English, Ahn enrolled in an American primary school.[4] He also sought work from Koreans who had already settled there.
The couple had a difficult time finding work due to anti-Asian sentiment and their poor English skills. While work was available in the agricultural sector, Korean immigrants still had a difficult time getting employment there due to a Japanese monopoly on labor contracts and the lack of their own labor bureau.[10][11]
Ahn Chang Ho picking oranges in Riverside (1912)[12]
In 1904, they moved to Riverside after encouragement from two Korean friends who worked on citrus farms there.[13] There, Ahn acquired employment at Alta Cresta Groves and help establishing the Korean Employment Bureau (also "Korean Labor Bureau"), which contributed to the growth of the Korean population there. Ultimately, his efforts to bring Koreans there led to the establishment of Pachappa Camp, also sometimes called "Dosan's Republic". A number of academics and city of Riverside consider it to be the first Korean settlement in the US, and in 2017 the Camp was designated a "Point of Cultural Interest" by the Riverside City Council.[14][10][15]
Kim was a founder and leader of a series of early Korean American organizations that eventually become the Korean National Association.
On September 22, 1903, Ahn and eight others founded the first ever Korean American organization, the Korean Friendship Society,[g] and he was elected its first president.[4][8][5] During that time, around 20 Koreans lived in San Francisco, including the Ahn couple.[8] In 1904, this group played a key role in settling and educating hundreds of Korean immigrants coming from Asian and from Hawaii.[16][8] On 4 April 1905, the Society changed its name to the Mutual Assistance Society (or alternatively Mutual Assistance Association[17]).[h] Its headquarters was at 938 Pacific St. in San Francisco.[citation needed] As part of the Society, on 20 November 1905 Ahn cofounded the newspaper The United Korean[18] (also "Kong Lip Shinbo"[14] or "The Independent"[19]),[i] the predecessor of the 1909 newspaper Sinhan Minbo. During the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, their office burned down, leading them to publish from Oakland instead.[14] The Sinhan Minbo would continue to publish and be a significant source of news about the Korean peninsula until well after World War II.[20]
On March 23, 1908, the Durham Stevens assassination, in which Stevens was assassinated after publicly claiming that Korea was better off under Japanese occupation, led to anti-Korean sentiment.[21] In response to this event, the Society merged with the Hawaii-based United Korean Society,[j] becoming the Korean National Association on 10 February 1909. This combined group was widely considered to represent the Korean American community until the end of World War II.[19]
Return to Korea
In 1926, he departed by ship from San Pedro, California, to China. He would not return to the United States often from this point onwards, although he and his family were registered as residents of 106 North Figueroa St, Los Angeles, on April 24, 1930.[22] During Ahn's anti-Japanese activism in Korea, he was arrested and imprisoned by the Japanese Imperial government at least five times. He was first arrested in 1909 in connection with Ahn Jung-geun's assassination of Itō Hirobumi, the Japanese Resident General of Korea. Ahn was tortured and punished many times during the years of his activism. In 1932 he was arrested in Shanghai, China in connection with Yun Bong-gil's bombing at Hongkew Park (April 29, 1932). He was a naturalized Chinese citizen at this time and illegally extradited back to Korea, where he was convicted of violating Japan's "Preservation of Peace Laws" and sentenced to five years in Taejon prison.
Death
Ahn Chang-ho (1937.11.10)
In 1937, Japanese authorities arrested Ahn, but due to complications from severe internal illness, he was released on bail and transferred to the Keijō Imperial University (now Seoul National University Hospital) where he died on March 10, 1938.[23] Judging that Ahn Changho's death might lead to a popular demonstration, the Japanese military limited the number of people attending the funeral, allowing only a small number of relatives to attend.[24]
Many consider Ahn Chang-ho to be one of the key moral and philosophical leaders of Korea during the 20th century. In the turmoil immediately before and during the Japanese occupation of Korea, he called for the moral and spiritual renewal of the Korean people through education as one of the important components in their struggle for independence and building a democratic society. Ahn also included economic and military components in his independence movement strategies.
Dosan Park and Memorial Hall were built to honor Ahn's memory in Gangnam-gu, Seoul.[25] Another memorial was built in downtown Riverside, California, to honor him. Ahn's family home on 36th Place in Los Angeles has been restored by the University of Southern California (USC), on whose campus it sits (albeit in a different location). Ahn never lived in the house on the USC campus since the Ahn family moved there in 1935 many years after Ahn had gone back to Shanghai.[1]
At the request of Congresswoman Diane Watson, the USPS Post Office in Koreatown at Harvard and 6th Street was named Dosan Ahn Chang Ho Station. This was the first USPS naming honoring an Asian.[26]
Dosan Ahn Changho Post Office in Koreatown, Los Angeles
In 2011, the Ellis Island Foundation installed a plaque honoring Ahn[27] to commemorate the 100th anniversary of his entrance to the United States through Ellis Island from London on September 3, 1911. He sailed from Glasgow aboard the SS Caledonia.
The City of Los Angeles, in the early 1990s, declared the nearby intersection of Jefferson Boulevard and Van Buren Place - across from the Korean National Association and Korean Presbyterian church - to be named "Dosan Ahn Chang Ho Square" in his honor.[28] In 2002, the main freeway interchange in downtown Los Angeles where the 10 Freeway and 110 Freeway meet was also renamed the Dosan Ahn Chang Ho Memorial Interchange.
The third pattern of ITF-style Taekwondo, which is made up of 24 movements, is called Do-San or Dosan in his honor. This is the pattern that is required to advance from 7th Kup Yellow Belt with Green Tag to 6th Kup Green Belt.
On November 8, 2013, Ahn was given an Honorary Diploma by his alma mater, Yonsei University, in recognition of his service as teaching assistant at Gusae Hakdang and for his work at Jejungwon and Severance Hospital. Ahn was also a good influence on many Yonsei and Severance Medical School alumni. Susan Cuddy's son, Philip Cuddy, initiated the awarding of the honorary diploma and provide the historical records. Yonsei President accepted the diploma in a ceremony in Seoul on behalf of Ahn.
Ahn's children, Ralph, Philip, and Susan during World War IIThe Ahn Family in Los Angeles . From left, Philson, Changho, Soorah (lap), Philip, Susan and Helen (1917)
Ahn married Helen Ahn (née Lee) (이혜련; 李惠鍊; I Hye-ryeon; 21 April 1884 – 21 April 1969) on 3 September 1902, shortly before their immigration to the US, and they remained married until his death in 1937. She was a housewife and raised the couple's children on her own for many years. She also actively supported the independence movement through local fundraising and community organizing. She was posthumously awarded the Order of Merit for National Foundation in 2008 by the South Korean government and is buried in Dosan Park, along with her husband.[7]
The couple had three sons and two daughters. Sons Philip Ahn and Ralph Ahn were actors. Philip is considered the first Korean-American actor in Hollywood and one of the most prolific Asian-American actors of his time, and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Soorah Ahn Buffum (안수라; 安秀羅; 27 May 1917 – 18 June 2016) was a restaurateur and 1948 graduate of USC. She died at age 99.[30][31][32]
Philson Ahn (안필선; 安必善; 5 July 1912 – 23 May 2001) was an engineer and aerospace executive. He acted in minor roles in several films and attained his Bachelor in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley.[33][34] He never learned to speak Korean very well.[35] Despite the mistrust of Asians during World War II, he worked at the Hughes Aircraft Company first as a chemist and later as a manager, and contributed to the development of the infamous Hughes H-4 Hercules. In the later parts of the war, he was later scouted by the US Office of Strategic Services, which worked on missions such as the Eagle Project to destabilize Japan, but was prevented from doing so by his company.[36] He visited Korea for the first time in 1992 at age 79.[35]
^Chang, Edward T.; Park, Carol K. (2019). Korean Americans: a concise history. The Young Oak Kim Center for Korean American Studies at the University of California Riverside. ISBN978-0-9982957-3-2. OCLC1112497049.
^Ahn Cuddy, Susan (1912). "Picking oranges in Riverside". TESSA Digital Collections of the Los Angeles Public Library. Retrieved April 1, 2023.
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