Picture Brides

Japanese and Korean Immigration

Beginning in the late 1800s, several hundred thousand Japanese men traveled to Hawai'i and the west coast of the United States to work as laborers, with plans to make money and then return home. Between 1886 and 1924, almost 200,000 Japanese nationals entered Hawai'i, and 113,362 returned to Japan. Despite their plans, during this time period, many men did not make enough money to return home to Japan. Koreans first immigrated to work on Hawai'i's sugar plantations in 1903, but all Korean immigration stopped in 1905 when Korea became a Japanese protectorate. In 1910, Japan annexed Korea, and immigration resumed. Between 1910 and 1924, approximately 700 Korean women went to Hawai'i as picture brides.

In the early 1900s, for a variety of reasons, anti-Japanese sentiment flared in California. In order to address that sentiment and to allow Japanese American children to attend public schools in California, the United States and Japan entered into the Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907. (The agreement was entered into unilaterally by President Theodore Roosevelt and was never ratified by Congress.) In essence, this agreement halted the issuance of passports to Japanese laborers for travel to Hawai'i or the United States, and many Americans believed that this would stop Japanese immigration to the United States.

However, the agreement did allow for passports to be issued to individuals joining a spouse or a parent, and as a result, women and children were allowed to immigrate to Hawai'i and the United States. This provision gave rise to the practice of using picture brides, and because of it, over 25,000 picture brides arrived in Hawai'i and the west coast of United States between 1908 and the early 1920s. The vast majority were Japanese. The practice also changed the gender composition of immigrants, particularly from Japan. Prior to 1907, 87 percent of Japanese admitted to the United States were men; after 1907, 58 percent were women.

The arrival of these numbers of women, particularly those from Japan, revived anti-Japanese sentiment in the United States The exclusionists, who opposed Japanese immigration in general and the practice of picture brides, argued that this type of marriage was immoral and also that the practice violated the Gentlemen's Agreement because the women were really immigrating to work as laborers in the fields. The exclusionists also feared that the children of these marriages would be able to purchase land and settle down. In addition, there was some sentiment that the picture brides were actually prostitutes. As a result of this continued anti-Japanese sentiment arising out of the practice of picture brides, Japan ceased issuing passports to picture brides in 1920.

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