During World War II many U.S soldiers and service-men left America and went off to other countries to fight in the war. Many of these soldiers ended up falling in love with women in these foreign countries. The soldiers would then marry these women and have their new wives move to America with them. These wives were known as War Brides. About a million service-men married foreign women that were English, European and Asian. When married to a soldier, the War Bride had to sacrifice and leave many things behind. The War Bride’s thought that coming to America would be a great opportunity to live a better and extravagant life, However when they came to America, it turned out that wasn't true at all. They came to America as strangers unemployed, …show more content…
no home, limited amounts of food, and having no knowledge of the culture that is surrounding them.
The War Brides came to America because they wanted to get away from the conflict and war that is happening in their homeland, The War Brides faced many challenges and obstacles when exchanging to a new culture, but they did it for new opportunities and for a new and a better life. One of the challenges the War Brides faced was going through lots of paperwork that were a requirement before they could travel across the sea. Another challenge they faced is having to arrive into a new land with new faces and being seen as an outsider. They had to assimilate to a new culture and tried to fit in. One of the challenges that the War Brides faced was going through a lot of paperwork and requirements before they can travel across sea. Before they can go to America, they had to get a visa and a marriage certificate to prove that they were married to a soldier or a servicemen. According to the articles in America in WW11 magazine, it said that immigration laws would often delay marriage and entrance to America. Those who did not have paper to prove that they were married to a U.S. …show more content…
servicemen were to be sent back home to their countries. In 1945, Congress passed the War-Brides-Act where they allowed military wives and children from different countries to travel to America without a visa. This allowed for the War brides to get to America quicker. The War Brides have to leave their family to live in other countries with their husband but the couple had to get family approval from the wife’s family because some parent didn't approve their daughter going to live in strange countries by themselves when their husbands are away to go fight in war. Some parents were worried that they wouldn't see their daughter again, but they knew that their daughter would have better opportunities in America than they would have in a country that is full of war. They also had to get approved by the husband’s family in America because some husband’s family weren't always welcoming to the War Brides and were not happy that their son married someone in a different countries and not married to the girls that lived in America. The husband’s mother would always tell their daughter in law about the American girls that their son was supposed to married to them to tried to make them feel bad. U.S. military also don't like the idea of U.S servicemen marrying foreign women believing that family responsibilities are a distraction from fighting and think that the War Brides could be enemies from the counties they are fighting against. For example In the Atlantic Time it say that The U.S military ban the servicemen from marrying German women because Germany was an enemy country and they were afraid that the women could be spies for the Germany. Since September 1944 the U.S army radio would tell the soldiers not to go near a German women and they were pronounced these slogan everyday that said “ Don't make friends!” “Be suspicious!” “ Every German girl is a funeral march!” Once all the paperwork are done they embarked on a 10 day-voyage journey to America with sick people, with horrible boat condition, and bad weather. There are restrictions on who can travel on board such as women who are 9 month pregnant cannot travel because they are afraid that they will give birth. They have to go through health and physical exam to make sure that they are not ill or are infected with any disease. Many women don't like this and think that it is a humiliation that they have to stripped down. According to Los Angeles Times it said that at a camp in Tidworth the War brides were required to take humiliating medical exams where they forced to be naked while a doctor thoroughly examine them to check to see if they are affected with any disease or illnesses, and some girl were upset that they have to do this so they decide not to go to America and fled the camp, but most girl decide to get through it and they ended up going to America. Another challenge the war brides have to faced is arriving in a land with new faces and strangers.
The war brides have to meet new people and make new friends, but they are not easily welcomed by the American because the American think that the war brides are gold digger by using marriage as a way to get out of their poor and undeveloped countries. When the war brides arrived in America, they are starting to feel homesick and missing their family. Some war brides would missed their family so much that they wouldn't eat or have conservation with other people, but through it all the war bride was able to find someway to make them feel at home and not truly alone or lonely when they arrive in a new land, so they started a club that involved all the other war brides, where they all help each other out by finding work for each other, taking care of one and other children when their husband is away to fight in the war and they also are there for each other when they missed their family or going through problems. This is the club where they share similar language and culture. They can also be able to make friends during these clubs. The war brides would do normal American things together such as having party, going to games, and shows, and eating lunch and dinner together. According to the article in New York Times it said that the war brides are friends with other war brides that have went through war with each other in their homeland and they share their stories with each other
and comfort one another. By having each other the war brides are occupied and have people to share similar interest with. There are also different organization that helped support the war bride while they are in America. In the article America in WW it said that there is an organization called the Transatlantic Brides and Parent Association which help the parent of the War Brides arrange travel arrangement to visit their kids and grandchildren in America. This organization help the war bride to still stayed in touch with their family while they are in America. Finally, another challenge the War Brides have to go through is trying to assimilate to a new culture. The war brides have to find jobs so they can support their family while their husband is away to fight during war. American think that the War Brides are loaded and they get all their money and food from the military, but that is not true because the War Brides have to lived on limited amount of food and they have to get jobs to tried to support their family. In the New York Times article it said that during the war, War brides have to live on eight ounces of meat a week, four ounce of butter, and a very limited coupon for clothing. The War brides have to also find jobs but the jobs in America were very scarce and most job there are not for women. The war brides have to abandon the clothing that they have usually wear back home and have to wear American clothing so they could fit in. The war brides have to learn a new language because they can't speak the language they usually speak in their homeland so they have to learned a language where people can understand them. They also have to adapt to a new routine where they have to find ways to take care of their children and raise their family without their husband who had gone off to fight in war. Ever since WWII over a million servicemen have married girl from their foreign country and have called war brides. War brides have to leave everything behind which included their customs, culture, countries, language and the hardest part they have to do is leaves their countries. The war brides have faces many obstacles and challenges when changing to a new culture, but they did for better opportunities and to have a good better life for their family. One of the challenges they have face is they have a lot of paperwork and requirement to get done before they can across the sea to America. Another challenge they have to faced is arriving in a land with new faces, strangers, and where they are discriminated by Americans. Finally another challenge they faced is trying to assimilate to another culture.
The book begins by explaining the roles that women in this time were known to have as this helps the reader get a background understanding of a woman’s life pre-war. This is done because later in the book women begin to break the standards that they are expected to have. It shows just how determined and motivated these revolutionary women and mothers were for independence. First and foremost, many people believed that a “woman’s truth was that God had created her to be a helpmate to a man” (p.4). Women focused on the domain of their households and families, and left the intellectual issues of the time and education to the men. Legally, women had almost no rights. Oppressed by law and tradition, women were restricted their choice of professions regardless of their identity or economic status. As a result, many women were left with few choices and were cornered into marriage or spinsterhood, which also had its limitations. As a spinster, you were deemed as unmarried who was past the usual age of marriage. Patronized by society, these women were left and stamped as “rejected”. On the other side, If the woman became married, all that she owned belonged to her husband, even her own existence. In exchange to her commitment, if a woman’s husband was away serving in the military or if she became a widower, she could use but not own, one-third of her husband’s property. This left her to manage the land and serve as a surrogate laborer in her husband’s absence. Needless to say, a day in a woman’s life then was filled with a full day of multi-tasking and as circumstances changed, more women had to adapt to their urban
During the time of 1940-1945 a big whole opened up in the industrial labor force because of the men enlisting. World War II was a hard time for the United States and knowing that it would be hard on their work force, they realized they needed the woman to do their part and help in any way they can. Whether it is in the armed forces or at home the women showed they could help out. In the United States armed forces about 350,000 women served at home and abroad. The woman’s work force in the United States increased from 27 percent to nearly 37percent, and by 1945 nearly one out of every four married woman worked outside the home. This paper will show the way the United States got the woman into these positions was through propaganda from
They took over the care part of the trip for their kids and husbands, while the sacrificed(all that they knew) a lot to go west for opportunities for themselves, but especially for their families. Pioneer women moved West to advance themselves socially and politically. Women pioneers also viewed new challenges in this land, including: finding animals to use for food, finding shelter, finding a reliable business with their husbands to keep their family stable financially and so many more. The Manifest Destiny was no easy time for pioneer women in all, so much challenged them.
...owards more love stories. Essentially more forms of propaganda ensued to let women know what they should be doing. More domestic jobs became available such as being a maid, restaurant work, dishwashing and cleaning. However women who worked war jobs wanted their own maids now so they could pursue their own dreams. They felt inspired and accomplished. Lola Wiexl mentioned that although skills within the workforce were easily learned, within the household traditions still persisted. Lola herself said she'd go home cook, clean and do the laundry while her brother laid on the couch. She didn't question it before but she was angry about it for years after her war time experience. Thus patriarchal hegemonies still existed after the war and were perpetuated by the government and media as much as possible to solicit women who participated in activities outside of the home.
... many hardships when they came to America. They were treated much differently than men and had certain expectations to fulfill. They came to America to seek better lives, but were welcomed with many challenges of living in this new world. The lack of income that immigrant families received greatly affected the lives of women. While these challenges left many women poor, uneducated, and in poor health, they also caused women to fight for better wages and working conditions. They would also pave the way for women to become more independent in later years.
For the first time women were working in the industries of America. As husbands and fathers, sons and brothers shipped out to fight in Europe and the Pacific, millions of women marched into factories, offices, and military bases to work in paying jobs and in roles reserved for men in peacetime. Women were making a living that was not comparable to anything they had seen before. They were dependent on themselves; for once they could support the household. Most of the work in industry was related to the war, such as radios for airplanes and shells for guns. Peggy Terry, a young woman who worked at a shell-loading plant in Kentucky, tells of the money that was to be made from industrial work (108). “We made a fabulous sum of thirty-two dollars a week. To us that was an absolute miracle. Before that, we made nothing (108)." Sarah Killingsworth worked in a defense plant. " All I wanted to do was get in the factory, because they were payin more than what I'd been makin. Which was forty dollars a week, which was pretty good considering I'd been makin about twenty dollars a week. When I left Tennessee I was only makin two-fifty a week, so that was quite a jump (114)." Terry had never been able to provide for herself as she was able to during the war. " Now we'd have money to buy shoes and a dress and pay rent and get some food on the table. We were just happy to have work (108).” These women exemplify the turn around from the peacetime to wartime atmosphere on the home front. The depression had repressed them to poverty like living conditions. The war had enabled them to have what would be luxury as compared to life before.
...ool to receive an education. However, being new in America, they were apt to make many mistakes, which in some cases proved deadly. In all, their experiences helped them to develop knowledge of their new homeland. They also helped them to make better decisions and better the future for their family.
...as Mary Ann in the novel show that women can do so much more than sew and cook. Without women, all wars would have been a lot harder. Although men tend to keep a macho facade in order to calm others (such as the women in their lives), inside they may be like glass, easy to break. A society set on the ideal stoic, fearless warrior who acts ruthlessly and saves the damsel in distress (also showing that women are weak) obviously is one where doomed to sexism. Without the comfort and inspiration, men would have deteriorated in the face of death. All and all, women provided the needed comfort, nursing, “manpower”, and love that the soldiers of Vietnam need, something that helped them endure the havoc of war. O’Brien’s expert use of the feminist lens allows the reader to know that women indeed were a powerhouse in the Vietnam war, without whom, men would have perished.
The 1940s provided a drastic change in women’s employment rates and society's view of women. With the end of the Depression and the United States’ entrance into World War II, the number of jobs available to women significantly increased. As men were being drafted into military service, the United States needed more workers to fill the jobs left vacant by men going to war. Women entered the workforce during World War II due to the economic need of the country. The use of Patriotic rhetoric in government propaganda initiated and encouraged women to change their role in society. Yet, at the end of the war, the same ideas that encouraged women to accept new roles had an averse affect on women, encouraging them to leave the workforce. The patriotism promoted by propaganda in the 1940s, encouraged Americans to support the war effort and reinforced the existing patriarchal society. Propaganda's use of patriotism not only increased loyalty to America during the war, but also, increased loyalty to the traditional American patriarchal values held in society.
When all the men were across the ocean fighting a war for world peace, the home front soon found itself in a shortage for workers. Before the war, women mostly depended on men for financial support. But with so many gone to battle, women had to go to work to support themselves. With patriotic spirit, women one by one stepped up to do a man's work with little pay, respect or recognition. Labor shortages provided a variety of jobs for women, who became street car conductors, railroad workers, and shipbuilders. Some women took over the farms, monitoring the crops and harvesting and taking care of livestock. Women, who had young children with nobody to help them, did what they could do to help too. They made such things for the soldiers overseas, such as flannel shirts, socks and scarves.
Jarratt, M. (2009). War brides: The stories of the women who left everything behind to
The role of women in society was unchanging. It was quite remarkable how stable their role remained for so long (135). While still recovering from the Depression, Europe managed to mark the beginning of the biggest war in history. They first took over Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. And after Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese, the United States entered the war. The main transformation World War II made for women in American society was there were man...
However, when the war was over, and the men returned to their lives, society reverted back to as it had been not before the 1940s, but well before the 1900s. Women were expected to do nothing but please their husband. Women were not meant to have jobs or worry about anything that was occurrin...
In Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier the continual coverage made by the media of the war during its occurrence and the infectiousness it had on those back home is portrayed through the eyes of her narrator, Jenny. The use of a female narrator wasn’t uncommon nor new but the way West includes her feminist values into Jenny without making it central to the story is fascinating. Up to this point in history, coverage of a war had never been read about as it was during this period. Because of this advancement in getting news out had improved drastically from the last war, people back home were more aware of what was occurring from reading a newspaper without having to wait for letters from their loved ones out on the front lines. West took this information in full stride and wrote about the emotional turmoil it causes the women back home waiting for their men to come back. She makes mention by focusing and bringing to attention the elements of class, exile from being deployed and the trauma that war causes on the soldier.
This was the start of a new age in the history for women. Before the war a woman’s main job was taking care of her household more like a maid, wife and mother. The men thought that women should not have to work and they should be sheltered and protected. Society also did not like the idea of women working and having positions of power in the workforce but all that change...