Ronald Moon was recognized as a Centennial hero and rode on the 2003 Rose Parade float (in the back row, center, with Paull Shin (left) and K.W. Lee, and Young Oak Kim in front of Ronald) commemorating the arrival of the S.S. Gaelic, which Ronald’s paternal grandfather immigrated to Hawaii aboard.
Photo courtesy of the Korea Times
The highest-ranking judge of Korean descent in the United States hails from the humblest folks on earth who, at the turn of the last century, found a slave-like workplace in Hawaii, instead of the island paradise they had envisioned.
The paternal grandfather of Hawaii Chief Justice Ronald Moon was among the first boatload of contract laborers that arrived on Honolulu in 1903. Moon Chung Hurn, from what is now North Korea, slaved for 69 cents a day in the sugar plantation at Wahiawa. He married a picture bride.
Ronald’s maternal grandfather, Lee Man Kee, from Seoul, also worked in the field, and it took 15 years of backbreaking labor for him to save enough money to bring over the wife and daughter he had left behind.
Both grandfathers of the chief justice worked their way out of the sugar plantation and went into business in Wahiawa. The elder Moon became a tailor. Lee ran a barbershop and pool hall.
A century after his paternal grandfather’s arrival aboard the S.S. Gaelic, Ronald — still “110 percent Korean,” as he characterized himself recently — was honored as a Korean Centennial hero and rode on a flower-decked Gaelic replica in the 2003 Rose Parade in Pasadena, Calif.
When Ronald became the chief justice of the Hawaii Supreme Court in 2003, he also became the highest-ranking jurist of Korean descent in the United States.
Photos courtesy of Ronald Moon
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For Korean America’s Mayflower family, it was a triumphant ride. His mother in Hawaii watched him on TV. When he called her later, she told him, “You know, there was a straight-on shot of you on the float, and you waved at me, so I waved back.”
After leaving the plantation, his paternal grandfather opened the tailor shop that became the source of family income for two generations, as the business catered to the nearby military Schofield Barracks. Ronald and his three younger siblings lived above the store, which was called “Duke’s” by soldiers who had a tough time pronouncing his father’s name, “Duk.”
Ronald grew up steeped in the family’s work ethic — patience and endurance — and church-based community service. Both grandparents led the Wahiawa Korean Christian Church, founded by Syngman Rhee and called the “Up Church.” His parents too were engaged in the parish service. Throughout, Korean independence and church work were inseparable parts of their lives.
His father, Duk-Mann, was president of the church, choir director, Sunday school teacher and leader of the Christian Endeavor Group, while his mother, Mary Lee, played the piano. In the 1950s, they were deeply involved in Korean War relief efforts, shipping tons of canned goods and clothing to their homeland.
Mary Lee Moon holds Ronald at the age of 7 months, in April 1941.
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The future jurist learned his first lesson of law as a 10-year-old: “One day, my friend brought out his BB gun. I was in the middle of the street shooting at some birds that were on a mango tree. A police officer captured me and took me to the station. I was verbally reprimanded and was sent home where my father forthwith gave me some corporal punishment.”
