Lee Geum-yi

“I’ve seen people living in every kind of house. And do you know what I’ve concluded from that? It’s that people are all the same, everywhere. Yangban, commoner, rich man, beggar, they’re all the same.”
― Lee Geum-yi, The Picture Bride

“The plantation owners farmed on a large scale, exporting sugar and pineapple. They had made Hawaiʻi an American territory to avoid high export tariffs. They initially used indigenous people as workers, but the numbers were far from sufficient. So they had hired Europeans, but they couldn’t stand the hot weather and hard work. Then the owners had looked toward Asia. The first to be brought in were Chinese, but the majority of them left the farms at the end of their contract and went to work on the mainland. The next to come were Japanese. They also went to the mainland after the end of their contract, and frequently held strikes, demanding increased wages and improved treatment. The first workers from Korea arrived in 1903.”
― Lee Geum-yi, The Picture Bride