Korean laborers in Merida, Mexico
Seen at Museum of Korean Emigration History, Wolmido, Incheon. Although the museum is primarily about Korean emigration to the United States of America, it also discusses Korean migration to other parts of the Americas as well.
Mexico received a single boatload of 1,033 Koreans in 1905. This was a fradulent migration scheme that had the Korean arrivals work for far less pay, and in far more atrocious conditions, than advertised. The Koreans were sent to the henequén plantations in Merida, Yucatan, to do some very grueling work. The terms of employment were four years of indentured servitude; at the end of the service, between the low pay and Korea having become a Japanese colony, the Korean immigrants were unable to go home.
In Mexico, interracial marriages were never the kind of taboo that they were in the US, so the Korean immigrants dispersed all over Mexico and married the locals, and their descendants more or less lost the Korean identities. Today, a Calle Chemulpo (named after an old name for Incheon) in Merida is pretty much the only reminder of the Korean community that once existed there.
From the 1960s on, however, Koreans started arriving in Mexico again, from South Korea and from the United States. They settled in Mexico for business opportunities, and major Mexican cities now have small Koreatowns.
In the 1920s, some of the Korean-Mexicans relocated to Cuba, resulting in a small ethnic Korean presence there.
Korean laborers in Merida, Mexico
Seen at Museum of Korean Emigration History, Wolmido, Incheon. Although the museum is primarily about Korean emigration to the United States of America, it also discusses Korean migration to other parts of the Americas as well.
Mexico received a single boatload of 1,033 Koreans in 1905. This was a fradulent migration scheme that had the Korean arrivals work for far less pay, and in far more atrocious conditions, than advertised. The Koreans were sent to the henequén plantations in Merida, Yucatan, to do some very grueling work. The terms of employment were four years of indentured servitude; at the end of the service, between the low pay and Korea having become a Japanese colony, the Korean immigrants were unable to go home.
In Mexico, interracial marriages were never the kind of taboo that they were in the US, so the Korean immigrants dispersed all over Mexico and married the locals, and their descendants more or less lost the Korean identities. Today, a Calle Chemulpo (named after an old name for Incheon) in Merida is pretty much the only reminder of the Korean community that once existed there.
From the 1960s on, however, Koreans started arriving in Mexico again, from South Korea and from the United States. They settled in Mexico for business opportunities, and major Mexican cities now have small Koreatowns.
In the 1920s, some of the Korean-Mexicans relocated to Cuba, resulting in a small ethnic Korean presence there.