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Picture bride

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Motives of picture brides

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Japanese Picture Brides at Angel Island in 1919.

There were many factors that influenced women to become picture brides. Some came from poor families, so they became picture brides for economic reasons. They thought that they would come upon economic prosperity in Hawaii and the continental United States, and could send back money to their families in Japan and Korea.[1] There is evidence suggesting that picture brides were not infrequently educated at the high school or college level and were thus more emboldened to seek out new opportunities abroad.[2] Others did it out of obligation to their families. Because the marriages were often facilitated by parents, the daughters felt they could not go against their parents' wishes.[3] One former picture bride recounted her decision: "I had but remote ties with him yet because of the talks between our close parents and my parents' approval and encouragement, I decided upon our picture-bride marriage."[1] There is, however, little to no indication that the brides were sold to their husbands by their families.[2]

Some women became picture brides in an attempt to escape familial duties. They thought that by leaving Japan or Korea they could get out of responsibilities such as filial piety that came along with traditional marriage.[1] Some women thought that they would gain freedoms denied to them in Japan and Korea. A quote from a Korean picture bride named Mrs. K embodies the mindset of many picture brides traveling to Hawaii, "Hawaii's a free place, everybody living well. Hawaii had freedom, so if you like talk, you can talk, if you like work, you can work."[4] With the influx of women becoming picture brides, some women followed the trend as the thing to do. As one Japanese picture bride, Motome Yoshimura, explained, "I wanted to come to the United States because everyone else was coming. So I joined the crowd."[5]


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Immigration

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The Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907 stopped the issuance of passports to Japanese laborers trying to go to continental America or Hawaii.[6] However, there was a loophole in the agreement that allowed wives and children to immigrate to be with their husbands and fathers.[7][8] It was because of this loophole that so many picture brides were able to immigrate to the United States. The impact of the Gentlemen's Agreement is evident in the population percentage of men and women before and after it was issued. For example, 86.7 percent of Japanese admitted to U.S. prior to the Gentlemen's Agreement were men, though after the agreement only 41.6 percent of the Japanese admitted were men.[9] By 1897, the Japanese were known as the largest single ethnic group in Hawaii, consisting of 40 percent of the population by the year 1900.[10] Between 1907 and 1923 14,276 Japanese picture brides and 951 Korean picture brides arrived in Hawaii.[11]

Likewise, Korean immigration to Hawaii was halted by Japan after Korea's new status as a Japanese protectorate in 1905. Picture brides, however, were an exception.[12] While the ethnic Korean labor force could no longer enter the U.S. from Hawaii in 1907, by 1910 groups of picture brides from Korea had begun immigrating to the West Coast.[13] In 1910, Korean men outnumbered women ten to one within the United States. By 1924 the population of Korean women had grown, the numbers reaching three men to one woman. This was due to many Korean girls already within the U.S. borders reaching marriage age, as well as the arrival of between 950 to 1,066 brides.[14][15] Between 1908 and 1920 over 10,000 picture brides arrived on the West Coast of the United States.[16]


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Problems with the practice

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Though initially unhappy, most of the picture brides eventually settled into their marriages or just accepted them so they did not shame their families.[17] Japanese couples were often from similar areas of Japan and therefore had fewer marital issues than Korean couples who were often from different areas of Korea.[18] Though, there were exceptions to this, and not every marriage worked out. Some of the picture brides, after seeing their husbands for the first time, rejected them and went back to Japan or Korea.[19] The bonds of these marriages were tenuous enough that bride Lee Young Oak and her husband Chung Bong Woon were met with praise and relief by their fellow Koreans in Hawaii for the relative success and happiness of their marriage while on their honeymoon in Honolulu.[20] Some married husbands who turned out to be alcoholics, physically abusive, or tried to sell them into brothels, but many of these women nevertheless stayed in the marriage for the sake of the children.[21]

An example of a picture bride who stayed married to her husband, despite his mistreatment of her, was Shizuko Tamaki; she and her husband were married for 50 years.[22] Others who initially married did not end up staying with their husbands. These picture brides resorted to elopement with another man, or kakeochi in Japanese.[23] Elopement was especially hazardous to the picture brides because of its endangerment of their reputation and their residency in the United States.[23][24] Wives who eloped could be deported to Japan, following the Japanese civil code that granted the husbands the ability to decide the new residency of their wife; for those women, the Women's Home Missionary Society in the United States provided temporary housing while they waited to go back to Japan.[25] In order to find their wives who had disappeared, the husbands of these women would take out reward ads in Issei community newspapers for whomever could find their wife.[17]

Many residents of the American continent and Hawaii thought that the Gentlemen's Agreement would end Japanese immigration to the United States, so when vast numbers of picture brides started arriving, it revitalized the Anti-Japanese Movement.[19] The people who were so against the immigration of the Japanese and picture brides were called exclusionists.[26] They called picture bride marriage uncivilized because it didn't involve love or have any regard to morality; exclusionists thought of picture bride marriage as a violation of the Gentlemen's Agreement, since they believed the women were more like workers rather than wives to the men.[27] Exclusionists also feared that children produced from picture bride marriages would be a dangerous addition to the population because they would be able to buy land for their parents in the future.[21] Also, some people, many immigrant inspectors included, thought that picture bride marriage was a disguise for a prostitution trade.[28] Overall, there was a negative sentiment toward picture brides in the United States.


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Bibliography

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  • Chang, Edward T. Riverside, California: The Young Oak Kim Center for Korean American Studies at the University of California Riverside, 2019. Print.
  • Macmillan, Michael E. (November 1985). Unwanted Allies: Koreans as Enemy Aliens in World War II. Hawaiian Journal of History, 19, 179-203. Hawaiian Historical Society.
  • Shin, Linda. (April 1975). Koreans in America, 1903-1945. Amerasia Journal, 3(1), 32-39. UCLA Asian American Studies Center.
  • Yang, E.S. (1984). Korean Women of America: From Subordination to Partnership, 1903-1930. Amerasia Journal, 11(2), 1-28. UCLA Asian American Studies Center.

References

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  1. ^ a b c Fan (1996). p. 75.
  2. ^ a b Yang, Eun Sik (1984). "Korean Women of America: From Subjugation to Partnership, 1903-1930". Amerasia Journal. 11 (2). UCLA Asian American Studies Center: 8.
  3. ^ Fan (1996). p. 70.
  4. ^ Chai (1979). p. 11.
  5. ^ KVIE Public Television (2010).
  6. ^ Lee (2003). p. 26.
  7. ^ Fan (1996). p. 74-75.
  8. ^ Chang, Edward T. (2019). Korean Americans: A Concise History. Riverside, CA: The Young Oak Kim Center for Korean American Studies at the University of California Riverside. p. 7. ISBN 0998295736.
  9. ^ Lee (2003). p. 27.
  10. ^ Dennis Ogawa and Glen Grant, "The Japanese in Hawai'i: 1885-1920," Picture Bride. N.p., n.d. Web. http://www.picturebridemovie.com/japan.html retrieved on 5 November 2012.
  11. ^ Takaki (1983). p. 123.
  12. ^ Macmillan, Michael E. (November 1985). "Unwanted Allies: Koreans as Enemy Aliens in World War II". Hawaiian Journal of History. 19: 180 – via Hawaiian Historical Society.
  13. ^ Shin, Linda (April 1975). "Koreans in America, 1903-1945". Amerasia Journal. 3 (1). UCLA Asian American Studies Center: 33.
  14. ^ Yang, Eun Sik (1984). "Korean Women of America: From Subordination to Partnership, 1903-1930". Amerasia Journal. 11 (2). UCLA Asian American Studies Center: 3.
  15. ^ Chang, Edward T. (2019). Korean Americans: A Concise History. Riverside, CA: The Young Oak Kim Center for Korean American Studies at the University of California Riverside. p. 8. ISBN 0998295736.
  16. ^ Tanaka (2004). p. 116.
  17. ^ a b Yasutake (2004). p. 119.
  18. ^ Chai (1988). p. 56.
  19. ^ a b Niiya (2001). p. 335.
  20. ^ Chang, Edward T. (2019). Korean Americans: A Concise History. Riverside, California: The Young Oak Kim Center for Korean American Studies at the University of California Riverside. p. 8. ISBN 0998295736.
  21. ^ a b Fan (1996). p. 76.
  22. ^ Sharon Yamato Danley, "Japanese Picture Brides Recall Hardships of American Life," Los Angeles Times, 11 May 1995 http://articles.latimes.com/1995-05-11/news/cb-64865_1_picture-bride retrieved on 5 November 2012.
  23. ^ a b Niiya (2001). p. 234.
  24. ^ Yasutake (2004). P. 120.
  25. ^ Lee (2003). p. 36.
  26. ^ Niiya (2001). p. 161.
  27. ^ Fan, C. (1996). Asian women in Hawai'i: migration, family, work, and identity. NWSA Journal, 8(1), 70-84. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.
  28. ^ Lee (2003). p.29.
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