Jeronimo (about the documentary and trailer)
Jeronimo is an independent documentary currently being produced by Joseph Juhn, a Korean-American attorney in New York.
How did Koreans end-up in Cuba in the first place?
In 1905, 1,033 Koreans boarded the SS Ilford to Mexico. It was imagined and portrayed as a journey towards prosperity in the new world – a departure from what was then an impoverished country. The reality that awaited these migrants was a life of indentured servitude in the Henequen plantations of Mexico, harvesting an agave that was then known as “the green gold” of Mexico. Many fled to Cuba with dreams of getting a foothold in the then lucrative (and less “harsh”) sugar cane industry, though by the time they arrived the industry had already plummeted. They were again destined to hard labour in Cuban henequen plantations. Today, Korean descendants in Cuba can trace their ancestral roots back to these earlier immigrants who boarded the SS Ilford to Mexico in search of a better life.