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Korea
Organized Panel Session
Pachappa Camp in Riverside, California is the first Koreatown in America; it existed from 1904 to 1918. Dosan Ahn Chang Ho and Korean immigrants resided, worked, engaged in independence movement activities, and established a Korean mission at Pachappa Camp. The purpose of this paper is to trace the family history of Nak Chung Thun’s family; they left many written records in both the Korean and English languages and provided invaluable materials which help us to understand the settlement and activities of Korean families at Pachappa camp. Nak Chung Thun wrote several novels and stories in Korean and donated it to the USC East Asian library. Ellen Thun published “Heartwarmers” in the Korea Times newspaper during the 1990s and wrote about her vivid memories of Pachappa camp. Nak Chung Thun’s nephew Jacob and Frank Thun lived with their uncle at Pachappa camp to continue their education while their parents lived and worked in Hawaii. Nak Chung Thun and his family relocated from Hawaii to Riverside in 1907 and actively participated in the Gongnip Hyohoe organization. How and why did Nak Chung Thun come to migrate from the Pyongan Province, Korea to the United States and settle in Riverside, California? What roles did the Thun family play in the establishment and development of the first Korean settlement in Riverside? This presentation will offer an ethnographic study of this immigrant family within the broader history of the early Korean American migration.
Edward Chang
University of California, Riverside