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Grandmother's experience in the U.S. as a picture bride

And then, I believe on the thirteenth day, as they were landing in Seattle, there were sixty other photo brides on this boat. She described how they all ran to the front of the boat and they all had the photographs of their future husbands, that of course they had never met, and how they were pointing to each other, trying to identify their husbands down below. And the husbands had their photographs of the, of the wives, and they were doing the same things from down below.

And then, interestingly enough, for the next two weeks, in her diaries, she never mentioned my grandfather again. But she wrote profusely about Seattle and what it felt like to be there and what an interesting place it was and so on. And the stories, or the rumors of the family were that she felt somewhat disappointed, and felt that Seibi had somewhat misrepresented his brother. And if my memory serves me correctly, she did admit that she was somewhat disappointed, but was, also said very quickly that within a very short time period she changed her opinion of him and he turned out to be the most wonderful person that she could ever have imagined. And my grandfather certainly was in complete reverence of my grandmother.

I mean, if there was ever a matriarchal family at that level, it was their family, because I had never heard him say anything disparaging about her. And he became almost like her servant in many ways, which was rather unusual for a Nisei family. So anyway, so my grandmother, shortly after arriving in this country, applied for her midwife license and began the practice of delivering babies. And from 1912 or 1913 when she began, all the way to 1938, I believe, she either delivered or assisted in the delivery of over a thousand babies.


brides picture brides wives

Date: March 18 & 20, 2003

Location: Washington, US

Interviewer: Alice Ito and Mayumi Tsutakawa

Contributed by: Denshō: The Japanese American Legacy Project.

Interviewee Bio

Roger Shimomura's paintings, prints, and theater pieces address sociopolitical issues of Asian America. Many of his works are inspired by the diaries kept by his late immigrant grandmother for fifty-six years. Shimomura has had more than 100 solo exhibitions of his paintings and prints, and has presented his experimental theater pieces at such venues as the Franklin Furnace, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Widely honored as an educator, he was designated a University Distinguished Professor by the University of Kansas. In 2001 the College Art Association presented him with the Artist Award for Most Distinguished Body of Work in recognition of his four-year, twelve-museum national tour of the painting exhibition An American Diary. He retired from teaching in 2004.

Shimomura's personal papers are being collected by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. He is represented by galleries in New York, Chicago, Kansas City, Miami, and Seattle.

*The full interview is available Denshō: The Japanese American Legacy Project.

Jean Hayashi Ariyoshi
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Jean Hayashi Ariyoshi

Father retouching photos of picture brides

Former First Lady of Hawai'i

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Barbara Kawakami
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Barbara Kawakami

Picture brides and karifufu

An expert researcher and scholar on Japanese immigrant clothing.

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Kazumu Naganuma
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Kazumu Naganuma

Parent's immigration to Peru

(b. 1942) Japanese Peruvian incarcerated in Crystal City

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Reiko T. Sakata
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Reiko T. Sakata

Parent’s Marriage

(b. 1939) a businesswoman whose family volunterily moved to Salt Lake City in Utah during the war.

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