Japanese Picture Brides

Marriage is the sacred bond between two people that share a love so deep they wish to be together for all eternity. This is what most people believe, they view marriage as a happy fairy tale, however this is not the truth for all. In many cultures marriage is not about love, it is about money, status, and tradition. An example of this would be the Japanese picture brides. Many Japanese women found husbands in America through just a picture of the man. This practice was popular in the early 1900’s, according to Racism And The Law, over 20,000 woman came over to marry American men. It was mostly prevalent with Japanese women but also with Korean. Each woman found a husband this way for different reasons but all shared the same fears of what was to come. The influence the bride’s backgrounds had on their American experience, problems they faced, and how they resolved them can be seen in “Come, Japanese” by Julie Otsuka.
The Japanese culture is very different from the American, especially

In the beginning when only a few Japanese were coming over there was no evident signs of resentment from the Americans, but as time went on the numbers grew to about 38,303 the racism was inevitable. Akagi Shyly, a picture bride said, “children would throw eggs and tomatoes at him as he rode to work in the streetcar”, this was because her husband was Japanese. The American people did not accept the Japanese immigration so they found ways to harass them.
Despite these challenges the brides faced they made the best of their situation. The Japanese women knew to not complain and do as they should. The brides would focus on growing and caring for their family to make all the hardships worth it. They lived in better homes than they did in Japan, had the means to take care of their family, and were treated better by the men. These aspects made the woman grateful for what they had and more accepting to deal with the negative