To return to this sets' summary click Overview. For the general product directory, click Directory. Articles U.S. Immigration History Arab American Stereotypes Chinatowns Elian Gonzalez Green Cards Irish Immigrants Picture Brides Proposition 227 Naturalization Illegal Aliens Discrimination Other Elements Category Index Index Table of Contents If you need help with products and ordering, setting up a new account or working with this website, call or email us: Phone: (800) 221-1592 Email: csr@salempress.com A good contribution to the study of immigration in the U.S. and is recommended for high school and public libraries. Even libraries that own some of the larger sets on which it is based will appreciate the convenience of having widely scattered material pulled together in two volumes. Booklist   Click here   to read the entire review.

Editors: Carl L. Bankston III and Danielle Hidalgo,     both of Tulane University ISBN: 978-1-58765-266-0 List Price: $120 February 2006 · 2 volumes · 784 pages · 6"x9" Japanese women arriving at the Angel Island immigration station in San Francisco Bay during the early 1920's. (National Archives) Immigration in US History Picture Brides Definition: Women who wed who have arranged marriages with strangers -     usually of the same nationality - in foreign lands that were facilitated     by the prior exchange of photographs and letters Immigration Issues: Families and marriage; Japanese immigrants; Women Significance: Picture bride marriages were especially common among     Japanese immigrants to the United States and Hawaii before World War II. More than fourteen thousand women immigrated to Hawaii and the United States mainland from Japan and its then-colony Korea between 1907--when Japan and the United States reached the so-called Gentlemen's Agreement, which restricted the immigration of Japanese laborers but made provisions for family reunion--and 1924, when the National Origins Act, which allowed only those who were racially eligible for citizenship to enter the country, put an end to Asian immigration. During the process of arranging marriages, parents, relatives, friends, and professionals were typically asked to act as go-betweens and character witnesses. Because an integral part of such marriages was the legal emigration of women from their homelands to their new husbands' countries, the women often had t to secure a passport she may be wedded to the groom (or his picture) despite his absence from the ceremony. Upon her first arrival in his country, both she and her husband-to-be are presumably identified by means of the pictures exchanged earlier, but instances of discrepancies between the picture and the person are common. The popularity of marrying picture brides among Japanese immigrants can be attributed to a combination of social, cultural, economic, and historical factors. It was first of all a logical extension of the tradition of arranged marriages. The lesser gender value placed upon daughters also encouraged their departure from their homeland into an alternative opportunity. In modern Japan, the exposure of women to education made them receptive toward the idea of travel, and the industrialization of the population paved the way for women to become laborers in America. More important, using family stability as a form of labor control, the plantations of Hawaii had long encouraged contracts between laborers and potential spouses. The experiences of picture brides--especially their conflicts with their husbands as a result of differences in age, education level, family background, personal aspirations, and taste--are a constant source of inspiration for writers and artists, as in Cathy Song's poetry collection Picture Bride (1983) and Yoshiko Uchida's 1987 novel and director-writer Kayo Hatta's 1995 motion picture of the same title. Research indicates that picture brides could become accomplished in poetry and the arts, and hence serve as transmitters and creators of culture. Because picture brides often survived long after their husbands' deaths, they have come to be venerated as matriarchs and culture-bearers by younger generations. Balance Chow Further Reading Hoobler, Dorothy, Thomas Hoobler, and George Takei. The Japanese American Family Album. New, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1996. Ichioka, Yuji. The Issei: The World of the First Generation Japanese Immigrants, 1885-1924. New York: Free Press, 1988. Makabe, Tomoko. Picture Brides: Japanese Women in Canada. Translated by Kathleen Chisato Merken. Ontario: Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1995. Uchida, Yoshiko. Picture Bride. 1987. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997. See Also Japanese immigrants; Mail-order brides; Page law; War brides; Women immigrants.

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