Seri Luangphinith, Professor of English

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Professor Luangphinith’s area of expertise is in the literature of Hawaiʻi, but she is actively developing an expertise in local Korean history and oral histories of Hawaiʻi Island.

Seri Luangphinith on a bridge with stream running in background.
Professor of English Seri Luangphinith at Gayasan National Park in South Korea while doing research for her book, The Paths We Cross: Lives and Legacies of Koreans on the Big Island. (Courtesy photo)

Posted June 26, 2024. 

Seri I. Luangphinith is a professor of English at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo. Her area of expertise is in the literature of Hawaiʻi, primarily local writers from Bamboo Ridge and other community-based presses. She’s also knowledgeable in postcolonial literature and theory — her favorites are the writers of Africa and South Asian Diaspora. Additionally, she is developing an expertise in local Korean history and oral histories of Hawaiʻi Island.

Luangphinith received her baccalaureate degrees in English and political science from UH Mānoa in 1991. She received her master of arts in English (1994) and doctor of philosophy in English with specialization in post colonial literature and theory (2000) from University of Oregon. She arrived at UH Hilo as faculty in 2001 following the completion of her PhD and then work at Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon.

Professor Luangphinith received a UH Frances Davis Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 2004.

Asked about her most important contribution to the literature over the past 23 years, Luangphinith says her article, “Solitary Confinement: Rethinking the Social and Political Context of Local Literature in Hawaiʻi,” (The Cambridge History of Asian American Literature, Chapter 22 from Part V, Post-1965 and the Twenty-First Century, published 2015) is frequently cited by her academic peers as significant to the field of Asian American and post-colonial studies.

But she personally thinks her book, The Paths We Cross: The Lives and Legacies of Koreans on the Big Island (Ka Noio ʻAʻe Ale, UH Hilo Independent Press, 2018), “has had the biggest impact in our local community and it has gotten the most press attention.”

Developing expertise: Korean immigrants to Hawaiʻi Island

Professor Luangphinith, who is of Japanese-Laotian descent and is proficient in conversational Korean language, has done extensive research into the history of Korean immigrants to Hawaiʻi Island and wrote The Paths We Cross about her findings.

Her investigative scholarship on this topic has gleaned a wealth of information, mainly through her field work throughout the island conducting interviews and collecting gravestone rubbings.

“We need to better understand and appreciate the Asian presence on this island,” says Luangphinith. “Koreans are a forgotten people here and that’s unfortunate given their contributions to the local community and to Korea.”

When she first started researching the history of Koreans on Hawaiʻi Island, she says she had no idea how much of a presence they had.

“They were a vital part of Hilo’s downtown business community and plantation towns from the 1920s through the 1950s,” she explains. “It’s amazing how much of that has been forgotten — hotels and boarding houses, pharmacists, shoe makers, tailors, automobile repair, railroad engineers, road and flume construction men, painters, you name it.”

This work is profoundly meaningful to local Korean families who, because of the decades of marginalization and the often unspeakable abuse of their ancestors, lost any knowledge about their roots.

On Hawaiʻi Island, the first wave of Korean immigrants came from 1903 through the 1920s. The second wave came during the Japanese occupation, then the next came because of the Korean War.

“You have all these different people who made up these different waves and then they all started inter-marrying and it became this really big web,” explains Luangphinith.

In addition to oral interviews she conducted for her book, Luangphinith began digging through old newspapers and public records of Koreans in the Lyman Museum archives.

“Then, on a hunch I started looking at Korean cemeteries because I knew that Japanese and Chinese immigrants recorded hometowns and families on their graves and sure enough the Koreans also did the same thing.”

Seri Luangphinith makes a rubbing from an old gravestone.
Prof. Luangphinith did research for her book in local cemeteries. Above, she traces a relief of characters on a grave in Pahala, Hawaiʻi Island. (Courtesy photo)
A charcoal rubbing of Korean language on gravestone.
Rubbing from gravestone made by Prof. Seri Luangphinith in her research on Korean immigrants to Hawaiʻi Island. (Courtesy photo)

Her rubbings of Korean gravestones on Hawaiʻi Island have helped many local Korean families reconnect with long-lost generations of their ancestors. She hopes the information gleaned from the rubbings help people better appreciate the care and sentiments that went into creating these memorials for the people who would never be able to return to their homeland due to poverty, occupation, war, political upheaval, and/or loss of kinship.

“I’ve compiled about 200 [rubbings] which will ensure the information is never lost even if the stones themselves disappear,” she says. “I’m debating how best to get them published, but that is another major undertaking that may be years away as I am still not finished with researching everyone. Some stories are awfully tragic.”

For now Luangphinith is compiling “index” sheets for many of the graves she’s found all over the island: here’s one example.

Prof. Luangphinith’s research brings “ancestral healing” to local Koreans

In 2021, the South Korea Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs appointed Luangphinith to a special committee tasked to help identify descendants of Korean independence activists. Her job was to find living descendants of independence activists who have been posthumously awarded citations by the government of South Korea.

Luangphinith had already found the family of Chun Yik Sur, an important Korean activist on Hawaiʻi Island who was part of the organization called 대한인국민회 which translates to Korean People’s Association. Mr. Chun was the head of the Papaʻaloa area first and then was General Secretary for East Hawaiʻi. He then went on to be head of the Lanaʻi district. He was active from the 1910s through the 1930s.

“The family of Chun Yik Sur has become good friends of mine… and I will be doing further research on Mr. Chun to include in the second edition of the book I published,” says Luangphinith.

Lumiel and Blessing sit at gravesite.
Lumiel Kim-Hammerich (right) and her daughter Blessing visit the grave of their ancestor Chun Yik Sur, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Commendation by the President of South Korea, Sept. 16, 2021. (Courtesy photo from Lumiel Kim-Hammerich)

The connection to the family was made through Luangphinith identifying and tracking down one descendant of Mr. Chun, his granddaughter, Lumiel Kim-Hammerich, who was living in the East Bay Area of San Francisco. She moved back to Hawaiʻi in August of 2021 and now lives in Waiʻanae on Oʻahu.

Kim-Hammerich was surprised to learn that her grandfather was being awarded a Presidential Medal of Commendation by the President of South Korea for his activism toward Korean independence.

“The family had no idea their grandfather was such an important figure,” says Luangphinith. “Just so happens he was on the Big Island doing this work in Papaʻaloa and Hilo.”

Kim-Hammerich says Luangphinith’s work brought “ancestral healing” to her and her family. “My family didn’t know about the history,” says Kim-Hammerich. “I am 81 years old and connecting with my Korean identity for the first time.”

Luangphinith’s work resulted in Kim-Hammerich’s family receiving a medal of honor from the Office of the President of South Korea. “No one in the family knew their grandfather Chun Yik Sur was such an important figure in the independence movement of the 20s and 30s,” says Luangphinith. “And he was here in Hakalau!”

Kim-Hammerich is the eldest surviving granddaughter of Chun Yik Sur and has received the first payment from the South Korean government. She will now be receiving monies twice a year for life. Luangphinith takes great satisfaction on her successful discussions with the Korean government bureaucracy to get this done.

More community outreach

Luangphinith contributed to the history component of the “One Heart: Korean Art and History Across the Pacific,” exhibition held at Wailoa Center in Hilo May-June 2024. She wrote the biographies and discussions found throughout the displays and shared the wealth of information gleaned from her field work throughout Hawaiʻi Island collecting the gravestone rubbings.

Prof. Luangphinith also is working on publishing the story of three Koreans who were executed in 1906 for first-degree murder.

“Given the circumstances of the case I am hoping to eventually seek a pardon if not apology from the state,” says Luangphinith. She has contacted Stephen Bright of Yale Law School who was recently featured on CNN for his work with the death penalty. “We are hoping to use his students in the spring to formulate a plan of action. There may not be enough of the original court case to retry it in an actual court of law but here’s to hoping some justice can be gotten for three men who were unfairly executed.”

Luangphinith believes her work researching Korean immigrants to Hawaiʻi Island is important because it’s helping to recover a lost history.

“I’m grateful I can be of service to families here — there are many for whom I have managed to identify and/or track down hometowns of their grandparents or great grandparents,” she says. “I can’t imagine not knowing who your grandparents are or where they came from.”

In the News

By Susan Enright, a public information specialist for the Office of the Chancellor and editor of Keaohou and UH Hilo Stories. She received her bachelor of arts in English and certificate in women’s studies from UH Hilo.