is a personal account of Korean history during
the Japanese colonial period, and it offers insight
into Korean cultural traditions. In the New World
(1991), which covers the period between 1924 and
1965, looks back on the personal triumphs and
frustrations of an early Korean immigrant.
Peter Hyun was the eldest son of Soon Hyun, a
descendant of Korean nobility, and Maria Hyun,
the daughter of a royal physician at the Korean
court. Raised with strong Confucian values, Hyun’s
parents were among the first converts to Christi-
anity. In 1903 his father was hired to lead a group
of Korean immigrants to Hawaii. Three years later,
Peter was born on Kauai, but the family returned
to Korea when he was only nine months old. In
the preface to In the New World, David Hyun states
that his brother Peter “grew up with a definite
identity. He was Korean.”
Man Sei! translates as “Long Live Korea!,” refer-
ring to the rallying cry of the Korean independence
movement. In an effort to explain the influence of
colonialism, nationalism, and world history on
Korean emigration, Hyun’s first book focuses on
the author’s childhood and adolescence in Korea
and China. Roughly following the chronology of
historical events, it describes how Hyun attended
the funeral of Korea’s last king and how he wit-
nessed the massacre following the 1919 uprising
against Japanese colonial rule.
Hyun’s father was involved in the organization
of the uprising and consequently wanted by the
police. The family managed to flee to Shanghai,
a center of the Korean exile community. Man Sei!
provides a vivid picture of the “International Set-
tlement” and discusses the activities of the Korean
Provisional Government, an organization work-
ing toward Korean independence. In 1923 Peter
Hyun’s father was appointed minister of the Ko-
rean Methodist Church in Honolulu. In 1924 Peter
and three of his sisters went to Hawaii, and the rest
of the family followed one year later. In line with
the conventions of many immigrant autobiogra-
phies, the book ends by articulating the hopes and
fears associated with life in the “Promised Land.”
In the New World describes an odyssey toward
a new “American” identity. Although it employs
the concept of the self-made man as a connecting
thread, the episodes of a life otherwise marked by
ruptures and traumatic failures betray a sense of
regret. The first chapters describe the adolescent
Hyun’s cultural transformation and embracing
of American democratic ideals. After these initial
years, Hyun left Hawaii to study philosophy and
theater arts at DePauw University, Indiana. His
trip across the mainland is also a rare description
of the shattered Korean-American community at
the time. Hyun presents himself as a strong indi-
vidualist who—while maintaining his ties with the
largely Christian Korean-American community—
became an atheist at an early age.
Although he was critically acclaimed as an
avant-garde director in New York and Boston, the
many racist experiences and setbacks he suffered
in the theater resulted in a serious depression. In
1937 he retired from the profession he had dedi-
cated his life to and tried his hand at different jobs
in Hawaii. In 1944 he became an officer in the U.S.
Army. While he embraced this opportunity as a
second chance to prove how “Americanized” he
had become, he also criticized the internment of
Japanese Americans and Korean POWs. His scep-
ticism grew when at the age of 40 he returned to
Korea as an army interpreter. His exchanges with
the Korean elite stood in stark contrast to the rac-
ism in the U.S. Army, a realization that serves as
a crucial turning point in his autobiography. As
a consequence of his experiences as an American
who belonged to a minority, Peter Hyun later be-
came an activist in the Civil Rights movement. In
the New World ends with the request that its readers
“construct a world of peace and tolerance” (279).Bibliography
Hyun Peter. In the New World: The Making of a Ko-
rean American. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i
Press, 1995.
Kirsten TwelbeckHyun, Peter 121