Black Flower (28 page)

Menem felt good about having driven off the unwanted guests, and the Koreans and their lawyer understood that there was no defeating the hacendados, at least not on this matter. The laws of the Yucatán and Mexico strongly supported Menem’s claims. Furthermore, there was no hope in lodging a lawsuit in a place where all lawyers were hacendados. And on top of that, there was a special law known as the Hacienda Autonomy Act that granted hacendados broad discretionary power concerning anything that happened on their land. The married men had no choice but to part with the Mayan women; the children would be left behind on the hacienda and become the property of the hacendado.

Finally May arrived, and the contracts that had shackled the Koreans became meaningless scraps of paper. Three days before their release, a local branch of the Korean National Association of North America was established in Mérida. At that point the contract had not yet expired, so the various haciendas sent only about seventy representatives to Mérida. Those who had already been released and the hacienda representatives tearfully celebrated the birth of an organization it had taken four years to establish.

Jo Jangyun, who was chosen as the first president, stepped up onto a hastily built platform and gave a speech he had written long before. Considering the time he had spent preparing it, the speech was a little disappointing. He was interrupted a number of times, overcome with emotion, and he kept losing his place. But it still offered a sense of the mood that day:

Today, the seventeenth of May, is the day on which the great organization known as the Korean National Association has formed a local Mérida branch. The representatives dispatched from each hacienda gather like clouds, like the various delegates who gathered at the Continental Congress in Washington, like the various representatives who gathered during the time of the French Revolution. How admirable, the establishment of the local Mérida branch! Though in days past we may have been scattered amongst the natives of this land with no organization, today we are the citizens of a civilized nation with our own organization, so why should we not celebrate twice and dance and make merry a hundred times? Let the prosperity of our National Association be an opportunity for the swift restoration of our native land.

Jo Jangyun’s excitement was especially evident in the passage about American independence and the French Revolution, though he knew little about them. When the speech reached its climax, the young people who had been waiting impatiently beneath the platform lit fireworks. The fireworks, though lit hastily, emblazoned the sky above Mérida. Thus ended four years of bond slavery.

T
HE CONTRACTS MAY HAVE EXPIRED,
but almost no one tried to return to Korea. Such was the destiny of those who owned no land. Whether because they didn’t have the money to travel, or they had married Mayan women, or there was no way for them to make a living if they returned, they settled down in the Yucatán one by one.

Jo Jangyun founded his military school in Mérida and called it Sungmu (“revering the military”) School. The soldiers of the Korean Empire from Pyongyang played pivotal roles at the school. Most of them had converted to the Baptist Church; they all tattooed their wrists with ink. They secured funds for the school through a credit union. On November 17, 1909, four years after the signing of the Protectorate Treaty, which bound Korea to Japan, they held a demonstration of traditional martial arts, during which Jo Jangyun declared the Protectorate Treaty null and void.

The next day, the 110 students of Sungmu School, organized into two platoons, all dressed in uniforms of white hats, white shirts, and black pants, wrapped themselves in black and red sashes, and paraded through the city streets. At Jo Jangyun’s command, standard-bearers carrying the Korean and the Mexican flags took the lead, followed by buglers and a military band, then young people in straight ranks, and behind them the old and infirm. When the procession passed before city hall, the governor of the Yucatán came out and waved to them. They could not have felt more joy at their liberation. Dressed in clean clothes and marching down the central streets of Mérida, streets of which they had only dreamt, they were filled with pride.

Following this, a play was staged. Workers from the haciendas dressed up as Korean soldiers and Japanese soldiers and acted out a mock battle, a war skit in which they imitated even trumpets and cannonades. The Korean soldiers captured all of the Japanese soldiers alive, forcefully concluded a peace treaty, then received compensation for war damages. They cheered and shouted, “We won! We won!” Those who had been upset at briefly becoming Japanese soldiers were determined not to be outdone, and shouted even louder, “Long live Korea! Long live Korea!,” celebrating their own scripted defeat.

O
N
A
UGUST
16, 1910, the Korean Empire, which had clung to life like a plant to a rock, disappeared into history. Japan annexed it, and Resident General Terauchi Hisaichi was appointed Governor General. Suicides in protest of the annexation swept the nation. Resistance leaders like Yi Geunju and Kim Dohyeon, government officials like Yi Mando and Jang Taesu, and scholars like Hwang Hyeon, among others, ended their lives in a variety of ways.

The immigrants in Mexico had known little of affairs in their homeland, and so were shocked to hear that they no longer had a nation to which they could return. They took out the small pieces of paper that they had treasured as most precious. They had waited a month in Jemulpo harbor for these passports to be issued, and now, long since yellowed from the dry climate and their lives of wandering, they were useless.

B
ACK IN
J
ANUARY
1910, an epidemic had raged across the Yucatán. Five people fell dead, including two newborns. Bang Hwajung and Hwang Sayong left Mérida and returned to the United States. As soon as Hwang Sayong reached Los Angeles, he was elected president of the Korean National Association of North America. In addition to his other responsibilities, he began to examine ways to solve the problems of the immigrants in Mexico at one stroke.

In September, Hwang Sayong left for Hawaii. He spent nine months touring the islands. He told the Koreans there of the horrible situation in the Yucatán and how much better off they were. Together they conceived a bold project to move all of the Yucatán Koreans to Hawaii in one group. They met with the Sugar Planters’ Association and stated their intentions, and the plantation owners, who were suffering from a shortage of labor, willingly agreed. They volunteered to petition the U.S. government for permission for the workers to enter the country. The plantation owners and the Koreans drew up a plan to move one hundred people as soon as their entry was cleared. In the face of great travel expenses, the Koreans of Hawaii and the mainland demonstrated an amazing spirit of sacrifice, shouldering the entire burden and immediately soliciting contributions. In Hawaii they collected $5,441, and on the mainland they collected $536.

When most of the preparations were complete, the Korean National Association sent a letter to the Mérida branch inviting four representatives to Hawaii. Jo Jangyun, Kim Seokcheol, and two others headed for San Francisco. The four of them were not a little excited at the idea of treading the soil of the United States, a country they had only heard about. Kim Seokcheol, who had converted to Christianity not long before, kept mentioning the story of Moses, comparing their journey to the Exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt. The four felt a strong connection to the hot desert climate, the hard labor, the epidemics, the oppression, and the suffering described in the Bible. They also believed that God had finally forgiven their sins and begun the great work of their salvation. Bang Hwajung and Hwang Sayong were compared to the Old Testament prophets. Hawaii was the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey. According to Hwang Sayong, the climate in Hawaii was mild and the water abundant, so there was no thirst, and not only were the wages high but the cities were prosperous, and there were many opportunities for education.

D
ON
C
ARLOS
M
ENEM
got off the train with his travel bag and walked into the station compound at Puebla. His servant José followed him with his luggage. A police officer approached Menem and saluted him, then he tapped the leather bag that José carried. “Let’s have a look.” José waited for Menem’s instructions. When Menem nodded, José put the bag on a desk and opened it. Inside were Menem’s neatly folded clothes and some books. “What books are these?” The policeman flipped through the pages. Menem stroked his mustache and answered, “Herodotus and Rousseau.” The policeman nodded and stepped back. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

Compared to the calm Menem, José was a little nervous. In the station there seemed to be more policemen than passengers. As they walked beyond the barrier, José whispered to Menem, “I think they are on to us. It will be dangerous.” Menem did not reply, and stood in front of the station, waiting for someone from Aquiles Serdán’s household who was supposed to meet them. Anxious minutes passed, but no one appeared. “What should we do?” asked José. Menem took out his pocket watch. Already thirty minutes. This could not be. “Go see if there is a clean hotel near here, and if there is, bring a porter back with you.” José ran off.

Menem had received Serdán’s memo a week earlier, about two weeks after Francisco Madero had called for an armed rebellion while he was in San Antonio, Texas, and one week before he was supposed to rebel, on November 20. Both a passionate supporter of Madero and a friend of Menem, Aquiles Serdán had secretly returned to his base of operations in Puebla to prepare for the insurrection, and he had sent a memo to Menem urging him to join the cause. In the memo it was written that five hundred liberalists would gather at his house, a surprising number. Yet no one had come out to the train station.

A short while later, José returned with an old, bent porter. With one bag hoisted on his back and the other bag in his hand, the porter led the way to the hotel. José offered to carry a bag, but the porter refused his help. The hotel was small and cozy. The owner, who was in the lobby, seemed surprised at Menem’s splendid appearance. “Sir, I see that you have come far.” Menem nodded and discreetly asked the owner, “Has something happened here? There were police all over the station.” The owner threw up his hands and began to talk. “You don’t know? This morning the police chief raided Serdán’s house. The two have always been bitter enemies, you know. He held out the search warrant and Serdán opened fire right then and there. Anyway, Serdán was a bit hasty. Even a fool could see he was assembling his forces, bringing in weapons every time the front gate opened. I hear that he disguised himself as a widow, but his costume was so poor that everyone knew. They all just pretended not to know. After all, he’s an aristocrat and a wealthy man.”

Menem took his room key and asked with feigned lack of interest, “So what happened?” The owner shook his head. “It was horrible. The police and the state army stormed the place and shot everyone dead. Serdán’s entire family was massacred, including his younger brother Máximo, and the weapons that were piled in the storehouse were seized. The same went for the liberalists who had already arrived. So, anyway, will you be taking a meal?” Menem waved his hand. “I’m not very hungry. I think I will just go up and rest.”

The next morning, there was a brief report in the newspaper on the slaughter at Serdán’s house. Menem’s hair stood on end. He called José, told him to pack his bags, and hurried to leave Puebla. “Where will you go, master?” José asked. “To San Antonio.” José, his face white with fear, said, “Why would you go there? Is that not where Madero is?” “Tomorrow the history of Mexico will change, and I can’t very well confine myself to the middle of nowhere in the Yucatán, can I? Return to the hacienda if you don’t want to go.” José looked as if he were about to cry, but he did not leave. They bought railway tickets for Mexico City, where they had to change trains to get to San Antonio.

When they had almost reached San Antonio, after an anxious two-day journey, the train suddenly stopped. They heard gunfire. A few armed troops came over a hill and met a counterattack by soldiers in uniform who were waiting for them. “Master, I have never seen such a ridiculous troop. Ah, they soon turn tail and run!” José chattered on, leaning out the window. Menem watched them as well. These might have been Madero’s troops, coming from the northern border. “Pull your head back in! Do you want to get shot?” Menem grabbed José by the scruff of the neck and yanked him in. A passing attendant confirmed for him that Madero’s troops had been defeated by the federal army and were now fleeing. The day of the uprising had finally come, but Madero’s troops disappointed him. Menem wondered if he should just turn around right here, but he had gone this far so he collapsed into his seat. He stayed there until the train reached San Antonio.

Madero was anxiously considering strategy with his supporters at the Hutchinson Hotel. Menem sat at a distance and watched him. There was an air about Madero that only the noble-minded possessed. When he had finished his meeting and came out to the lobby for tea, Menem approached and greeted him. “We have met before, President Madero. I am Don Carlos Menem, from Mérida.” Madero waved a hand. “I am not president. And I am sorry, but I do not remember you.” Menem clutched at Madero as he turned away. “I am a friend of Aquiles Serdán. I have come straight from Puebla.” Madero’s expression changed. “Señor Menem, you have come a long way. Have some tea with me.” Menem sat down and told him about the battle he had seen from the train. Madero laughed as if it were nothing. “My uncle’s troops were supposed to come from Mexico, but they did not arrive. Thus my troops returned. But the mood elsewhere is intense. Especially in Chihuahua, the flame of revolution is blazing like wildfire. Wait and see. We will not forget Serdán’s death. We have heard the news as well. It was truly horrible. So, what was it like there?”