The untold stories of Japanese war brides
After World War II, tens of thousands of Japanese women moved with their new husbands, American soldiers, and assimilated into American culture. Photo courtesy of the Washington Post
Kathryn Tolbert, who co-directed the film, “Fall Seven Times, Get Up Eight: The Japanese War Brides,” has this interesting story in the Washington Post.
Many Japanese women married U.S. military men who occupied their country after World War II and came to the United States:
“And then? They disappeared into America. There were tens of thousands of them, yet they vanished from public awareness — Japanese women who were barely a blip in immigration history, who married into families of North Dakota farmers, Wisconsin loggers, Rhode Island general store owners.
They either tried, or were pressured, to give up their Japanese identities to become more fully American. A first step was often adopting the American nicknames given them when their Japanese names were deemed too hard to pronounce or remember. Chikako became Peggy; Kiyoko became Barbara. Not too much thought went into those choices, names sometimes imposed in an instant by a U.S. officer organizing his pool of typists. My mother, Hiroko Furukawa, became Susie.”
KJ