Japanese Picture Bride Stories And Clothing Tatsuno Ogawa

Picturing a New Life: Japanese Picture Bride Stories and Clothing Tatsuno Ogawa, a young girl born in the Hiroshima prefecture of Japan, is about to board a boat headed to the United States in 1913. Armed with nothing but a kori, a storage chest, some cotton kimonos and a picture of her recently arranged husband, she is going to an unfamiliar country without any guarantees on the life ahead of her. Her journey to the United States is much like her personal one, filled with uncertainty, a feeling of discomfort, and painful living conditions. Upon arrival, she is met with responsibilities as a wife, and eventually as a mother on a small plantation, with no family to guide her, surrounded by languages she does not understand. As she expresses,

Japanese picture brides, women who immigrated to the United States from 1908 to 1924 with nothing but a picture of their husbands, expressed their identity through clothing. Japanese picture brides’ journeys were often filled with uncertainty, riddled with fear, and their lives isolated from their families back home. Clothing, the quickest change for these immigrants, often embodied these womens’ assimilation and their status as Japanese immigrants in a foreign place. Japanese women mainly arrived to two locations, Hawaii and the Western United States, and their experiences varied depending on geographic location. They often joined their husbands, the first generation of settlers, and together they make up the issei generation. As picture brides changed their outfits and learned how to sew, their clothing often mirrored their own identities and more specifically, their ability to survive. Japanese American women on the mainland used clothing as a way to render themselves invisible, highlighting their similarities to Westerners rather than their

Although immigration policies were initially favorable towards Japanese immigrants, white American laborers became increasingly troubled by the flow of Asian immigrants working within the United States. They then began movements which culminated in legislation banning immigration for both Chinese and Japanese immigrants. As a newly emerging world power, however, Japan created a joint agreement with the United States, titled the “Gentlemen’s Agreement” which stopped male immigration into the United States from the Japanese side without ever expressly banning it from the mainland. This agreement ended the period of dageseki immigration as men were no longer able to legally travel to the West Coast. However, within this agreement, a loophole existed which allowed wives of Japanese laborers settled within the United States and Hawaii to join their husbands. These wives were allowed, or even encouraged to cross the Pacific as it was believed women provided a stabilizing effect for bachelor male settlers. Thus, picture brides began crossing the Pacific Ocean, as wives to men they often had not met before. Picture Bride Childhoods within Japan Most Japanese picture brides had simple upbringings before crossing the Pacific, often coming from villages within the Southwestern prefectures of Japan, especially