"Excellent documentation and analysis" --International Migration Review 36 (2002)

"An insightful and well-researched analysis of what happened to the earlier Korean immigrants in Hawaii. Those of us in the field of immigration studies should benefit greatly from Professor Patterson's work." --Acta Koreana, 2000

"A rich collage of the Korean American experience" --Journal of Asian American Studies 4 (2001)

"Patterson provides us with a candid and thorough snapshot of a single generation of Korean immigrants in Hawai`i, each chapter ... systematically exploring a single aspect of their lives.... He underestimates the potential contribution of his research to both Asian and Asian American studies." --Journal of Asian Studies, November 2000

"The Ilse is the most comprehensive work published to date on the initial wave of Korean immigrants to the United States. A well executed qualitative analysis of the life history of the community, the book is also extremely eloquent and entertaining to read.... It should be required reading for anyone interested in the history of East Asian immigration in America." --Eui Young Yu, California State University, Los Angeles

On January 13, 1903, the first Korean immigrants arrived in Hawai'i. Numbering a little more than a hundred individuals, this group represented the initial wave of organized Korean immigration to Hawai'i. Over the next two and a half years, nearly 7,500 Koreans would make the long journey eastward across the Pacific. Most were single men contracted to augment (and, in many cases, to offset) the large numbers of existing Chinese and Japanese plantation workers.

Although much has been written about early Chinese and Japanese laborers in Hawai'i, until now no comprehensive work had been published on first-generation Korean immigrants, the ilse. Making extensive use of primary source material from Korea, Japan, the continental U.S., and Hawai'i, Wayne Patterson weaves a compelling social history of the Korean experience in Hawai'i from 1903 to 1973 as seen primarily through the eyes of the ilse. Japanese surveillance records, student journals, and U.S. intelligence reports--many of which were uncovered by the author--provide an "inner history" of the Korean community. Chapter topics include plantation labor, Christian mission work, the move from the plantation to the city, picture prides, relations with the Japanese government, interaction with other ethnic groups, intergenerational conflict, the World War II experience, and the postwar years.

The Ilse is an impressive and much-needed contribution to Korean American and Hawai'i history and significantly advances our knowledge of the East Asian immigrant experience in the United States.

Wayne Patterson is professor of history at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin, and author of The Korean Frontier in America: Immigration to Hawaii, 1896-1910 (UH Press, 1988).