Picture Brides Essay

701 Words3 Pages
Picture bride marriages were especially common among Japanese immigrants to the United States and Hawaii before World War II. There were many aspects that influenced women to become picture brides in the early Twentieth Century. Some came from poor families, so they became picture brides for economic reasons, they thought that they would end up being financially sturdy with their new husbands, and then they would be able to send back money to their families in Japan and Korea. Others did it out of obligation to their families. Because the parents often arranged these marriages, the daughters felt that they could not go against their parents’ wishes, so they went along with it. A picture bride is a woman who wed strangers, through arranged marriages, usually of the same nationality, in foreign lands that were facilitated by the prior exchange of photographs and letters. More than fourteen thousand picture brides immigrated to Hawaii and the United States between 1907 and 1924. Marriages are one of the major life events for Japanese Americans. “They are not marriages of individuals…” they “…represent the bringing together of two families. During the early immigration period "picture bride" marriages were common.” (Ng, Wendy). Both Japan and Hawaii encouraged the emigration of women to the United States in the early 20th century, “to promote a stable home life among Japanese laborers there and discourage prostitution, gambling, and other vices to which single young men might succumb. Many Japanese women came to Hawaii and the U.S. west coast as ‘picture brides.’ In a system similar to the traditional arranged marriages of Japan, a man and a woman would exchange photos and letters until the woman could travel across the sea to join her husband” (Japanese). The 1907-1908 Gentlemen's Agreement did not affect the picture brides of men already living in the United States.
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