Interview Rosemarie Nahm
Forgotten Beginnings: How San Francisco Shaped Korean Immigration History
When I first met Rosemarie Nahm, she didn’t introduce herself as a historian—but as a lawyer with a passion for telling overlooked stories. In conversation, her deep knowledge and care for Korean American history felt anything but amateur. As we spoke about Angel Island, picture brides, and the quiet power of early Korean immigrant networks in San Francisco, it became evident how this history is more than academic—it is deeply personal, local, and still largely unknown.
A Chance Encounter, A Lost History
Rosemarie Nahm didn’t set out to become a researcher of Korean immigration history. In fact, it began with a casual conversation at a Little League game.
“I met Edwin Lee, a second-generation Korean American, in his 80s,” she recalls. “He told me his parents had come through Angel Island in 1913 and 1917. I was quite surprised. I had lived in the Bay Area for over 25 years and had never heard of Koreans at Angel Island.”
That discovery, along with Edwin sharing his parents’ immigration files, sparked years of research. Rosemarie began digging into the National Archives, researching at local libraries and the vast resources on Korean immigration at the USC East Asian Library, and eventually curating the exhibit San Francisco Beginnings of Korean Immigration, first shown at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center and later at the Korean Center of San Francisco.
But the more she searched, the more she realized: English-language resources on early Korean immigration were shockingly scarce.
“There’s a wealth of research in Korean, much of it funded by the Korean government,” she explains, “but it’s inaccessible to the younger generation of Korean Americans or the non-Korean community members who don’t read Korean fluently. The few English materials I found only covered the history in fragments but not comprehensively. So I thought, maybe I have to write this in English myself.”
San Francisco: The Overlooked Beginning
While Hawaii is often cited as the origin of Korean immigration to the U.S., Rosemarie’s research shows that San Francisco played a crucial and often overlooked role.
“The earliest documented Korean immigrant, Seo Jae Pil, arrived in San Francisco in 1885,” she notes. “Most people don’t know that Koreans landed in San Francisco and dwelled here before the first group of Korean laborers landed in Hawaii in 1903.”
Passenger lists from the 1890s show dozens of Korean names, listed as students, merchants, and even ginger traders. This early presence, though smaller in number, became especially significant after Japan annexed Korea in 1910.
Q: How did Japan’s occupation of Korea influence the immigration of Koreans to San Francisco?
Rosemarie: Profoundly. After Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War, Korea was declared a Japanese protectorate in 1905 and fully annexed by 1910. Even before the annexation, a small group of students and activists came to San Francisco starting in the early 1900’s. Many were part of the resistance movement opposed to Japan’s increasing aggression in Korea and were fleeing from the threat of political persecution.Then from 1910 to 1940, about 1,000 more Koreans landed at Angel Island. This group consisted of students, mostly young men in their twenties, wives and children of men who were already in the U.S., and “picture brides”. These “Angel Island Koreans” were fleeing from the repressive conditions under the Japanese. They sought refuge in the U.S. with hopes of one day returning home.
Q: Can you tell us about the “Gentleman’s Agreement” that was signed in 1907?
Rosemarie: The Gentleman’s Agreement was a deal between the U.S. and Japan that limited immigration of Japanese laborers as a compromise to appease the American labor unions. Because Koreans were treated as Japanese subjects starting in 1905, they were put under the same restrictions. That effectively shut down immigration for Korean laborers. Only professionals, students, and wives—particularly “picture brides”—were allowed entry.
Picture brides, a story of hope and sacrifice
One of the most human—and unexpected—aspects of early Korean immigration history is the story of picture brides. As Rosemarie explains, these were women in Korea who agreed to marry Korean men in the United States by exchanging only photographs and letters.
“Many of these women were ambitious and eager to study or pursue opportunities abroad,” she says, “but they couldn’t qualify to immigrate as students or professionals. Joining a spouse already in the U.S. or promising to marry a man through a picture marriage was one of the few legal pathways for Korean women to enter the U.S.”
This route wasn’t just a cultural practice—it was shaped by restrictive immigration laws and deeply entrenched racial barriers. The U.S. favored male-dominated professions like merchant or student for entry visas, categories women had limited access to. In many states including California, anti-Asian sentiment and interracial marriage bans made it nearly impossible for Korean men to marry outside their ethnic group.
“So picture marriages became the only practical way for many Korean families to form.” Rosemarie explains.
Q: Angel Island also played a pivotal role in the immigration history, especially after the Gentleman’s Agreement. Can you tell us more?
Rosemarie: Angel Island was the main port of entry on the West Coast from 1910 to 1940. It’s often compared to Ellis Island, but it was also a site of exclusion and detention for those who failed to meet the scrutiny of the immigration officials enforcing the Chinese Exclusion Act and other Asian exclusionary laws. Only about a thousand Koreans came through during that time, many of them students or picture brides. The connection is especially poignant because Angel Island opened the same year Japan annexed Korea.
Rosemarie recalls one story in particular that moved her deeply. In an iconic photograph from 1914 on display at Angel Island, a little girl named Rose Paik is at Angel Island with her mother and sister, all dressed in hanbok. They were coming to join her father, a farmer in Idaho. Immigration officials initially doubted their story and detained them for over a week. Eventually, their story was verified, and they were released to reunite with him.
“I came to the U.S. as a nine-year-old with my mother and sister to join my father,” Rosemarie reflects. “Seeing that photo, I see echoes of my own journey. Although I came in much more hospitable circumstances, after the immigration reform of 1965, I feel an unspoken connection with Rose and her family. There are many immigrant experiences and hardships that only another immigrant can understand. Rose and I would understand each other.”
Q: Given the significance of Korean immigration in San Francisco, what types of community organizations emerged to support and unify them?
Rosemarie: The first Korean church was established in 1905 and became the social and spiritual hub for the immigrants. The early establishment of a church is not surprising. Many of the students and activists who landed in San Francisco were educated by American missionaries in Korea, were devout Christians and had come to the U.S. with the missionaries’ encouragement and help. But the most influential organization was the Korean National Association (KNA), founded and headquartered in San Francisco in 1909. The KNA unified Koreans across the U.S. and even had international chapters. Their leadership, organization and advocacy for the Koreans in America were impressive. Their newspaper, Shinhan Minbo, kept the small and geographically scattered community informed and was a critical tool in organizing their multi-faceted effort to fight for Korea’s independence from Japan.
As we wrapped up our conversation, I asked Rosemarie to share something more personal—a memory, a song, or even a fun fact that reminded her how deeply intertwined Korea and San Francisco truly are.
“Did you know that both the lyricist and composer of Korea’s national anthem (애국가 “Aegukga”) visited San Francisco? Yun Chi-ho, the lyricist, visited the S.F. Korean United Methodist Church in January of 1910, a few months before Japan annexed Korea. Soon after the annexation, Shinhan Minbo published a patriotic poem written by Yun, the words of which became the basis of our national anthem. Ahn Ik-tae, who composed the music, visited the S.F. Korean United Methodist Church in the 1930s. It is around the time of this visit that Ahn is known to have composed the music. His composition, then called the Korean National Hymn, was published in the Shinhan Minbo in 1936, and used the words from Yun’s patriotic poem. That’s an incredible cultural connection and shows the significance of San Francisco as the overseas hub of the Korean community during the Japanese occupation.”
When asked what kind of Korean music speaks to her, Rosemarie didn’t hesitate.
“Korean children’s songs that I learned as a child, many of which were written during the Japanese occupation period,” she said. “They carry so much longing. The one that stayed with me is ‘Uriye Sowon’ — Our Wish. It’s a song about reunification, and I learned it in elementary school. Even after all these years, it still gives me hope.”
For readers looking to go deeper, she pointed to a powerful memoir that captures the lived experience of early Korean immigrants:
“The ‘Golden Mountain’ by Earsurk Emsen Charr. He came to Hawaii as a ten-year-old in 1904, then made his way to San Francisco. His story as a migrant laborer and student is a fascinating window into the life of an early Korean immigrant that we know so little about. Reading about Charr’s journey, his dreams and the incredible hardships he and his compatriots endured is humbling.”
Korean immigration to the U.S. is often simplified as a journey that started in Hawaii. But Rosemarie Nahm shows us that deep roots of Korean immigration also run through San Francisco — at Angel Island, in its churches, in the KNA building where great organization and advocacy work took place, and in the streets and corners of San Francisco where ginseng merchants, families and migrant workers lived and worked. San Francisco wasn’t a stopover. It was—and is—a cornerstone.
Rosemarie continues to bring this history to life. Her 2020 exhibit, San Francisco Beginnings of Korean Immigration, is still available online, alongside a thoughtful Medium article, San Francisco Beginnings of the Early Korean Immigrant Community and its Independence Movement. Both are powerful entry points for anyone ready to uncover the hidden stories that shaped Korean America—starting right here in the Bay Area. Rosemarie is currently working on a walking tour of San Francisco as another way to shed light on the sites, events and people that shaped the early Korean immigrant community.
