Whether a professor, engineer, lawyer, doctor, or cleaner, most of the Koreans I met in Cuba lived in relative poverty. What they lacked in possessions, however, they made up for with an abundance of heart. They prepared plates full of kimchi, fried rice, and other Korean food for me.
Patricia’s 87-year-old mother, Cristina, is ever-resilient, passionate, and compassionate. She sat me down, brought out dozens of photo albums, and shared with me epic tales of her family history and her late husband, Jeronimo Lim.
Jeronimo was a legendary fighter in the Cuban Revolution. Cristina said that he worked for the Cuban government for nearly 30 years, and, at one point, even served as Director of the Department of Food Industry. Prior to the revolution, however, most Koreans still worked on plantations and were subject to laws that discriminated against ethnic minorities and foreigners. Whether one was for or against a communist government, the Cuban Revolution completely changed the existing order and benefited the Koreans there. Finally, they were equal to others.
Although Jeronimo served in the communist Cuban government for years, he is remembered as a non-ideologue who worked solely for the betterment of his people. He was a disciplined idealist, putting human values over self-interest and ideology. Jeronimo dedicated his early years to the well-being of the Cuban people, while his later years were spent rebuilding the local Korean community. I might venture to label him “Cuba’s Ahn Changho,” after the great independence activist of colonial Korea.
Jeronimo’s father, Lim Cheontaek, was among the 1,033 Koreans that boarded the ship for Mexico, carried by his single mother. He grew up in Mexico and then, at the age of 18, moved to Cuba in 1921 along with 300 others. Cheontaek worked on plantations for most of his life to make ends meet for his wife and nine children, while saving what little money was left over to send to the Shanghai-based Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea to support his country’s independence movement.
In recognition of these efforts, Lim Cheontaek’s name appears in Baekbeom Ilji, the book renowned politician and freedom fighter Kim Gu wrote about his life. After his death, in 1997, Lim Cheontaek received the highest presidential honor in South Korea; his body is now buried at the Daejeon National Cemetery.
So, there is the Lim family history—a grandmother working on a Mexican plantation as an indentured servant, a father collecting funds to support the Korean independence movement, and a son fighting in the Cuban revolution. Unbelievable is the right word. Imagine stepping into a complete stranger’s car and unexpectedly entering a forgotten chapter of Korean history.
I remember lying on my bed at the hostel the night I met Patricia’s family for the first time. I couldn’t fight back tears as I tried to make sense of what had just happened—a powerful and profound experience. Not only would I be letting down the Lim family and other Koreans in Cuba, but also my friends in the U.S., South Korea, and elsewhere if I were to regard this as just a cool travel experience and let it slip away.
A few months after leaving Cuba, I started acting on something that had formed inside me from that first day in Cuba. I gathered enough courage and told my employer that I was quitting my job as a lawyer so that I could make a feature-length documentary about Jeronimo and other Koreans in Cuba.
To raise funds, I made a short video with the recordings I had shot in Cuba and launched a crowdfunding campaign with a target of 10,000 U.S. dollars. People reacted with excitement, providing over 22,000 U.S. dollars via various channels. With my new funding and much gratitude, I returned to Cuba in the summer of 2016 with five friends who worked in the film and media industries. In the span of two weeks and across four cities, we met over 100 Korean Cubans and interviewed 35 of them. Needless to say, it was a life-changing experience.
When I began this project, I was simply amazed by Jeronimo’s career as a Cuban government insider for nearly three decades. Never did I imagine that I would discover a man whose noble pursuit of meaning in life would result in rekindling the origin of the Korean diaspora in Cuba. As I approached the middle of the project, my goal remained to uncover Jeronimo’s heroic yet humble tale and give the Koreans in Cuba the voice they have long deserved. If my documentary achieves this, I will have done my part.
When I came across Jeronimo, I felt he had settled fully into his environment all while holding on to his culture and sense of pride. He was 100 percent Cuban and 100 percent Korean. Jeronimo fully embraced both identities, and the resulting empowerment inspired him to serve others and live for causes larger than himself.