Essay Questions

Why do you think white Americans became frightened of their Japanese neighbors after Pearl Harbor?

After Pearl Harbor, people became more suspicious of the Japanese in their community primarily because they wondered if they had played any part at all in the planning of the attack. After all, this is all taking place in California, the closest state to Hawaii in location. Clearly the Japanese had planned the attack for some while. It would not be beyond the bounds of possibility for them to have spies in their midst. There does not seem to have been a great deal of reporting Japanese neighbors to the authorities, or turning them in; in fact, many people missed their Japanese neighbors. However, to many people the Japanese in their community were potentially linked to the attack and therefore they became something more sinister and frightening.

In what way did life in America differ from the expectations for the Picture Brides?

The Picture Brides had never met their husbands before coming to America. They only had descriptions provided by the men themselves. This is the first time in the process that their expectations and their reality began to change. Many of the men had been very generous to themselves in their self description. They wre often not at all what the women had been led to believe.

Life in general was also very different than expected. Although some of the women did manage to start businesses, or work in jobs with potential, many ended up working like migrant workers in the fields, living in group accommodation in shacks. They were not much better off in their new lives than they had been in their old lives.

Lastly, they had expected their children, when they had them, to have an easier life than they once did. This is not how it works out at all. Their children are rejected by the Japanese because they are Asian Americans. They are rejected by Americans because of their Asian heritage. This is not how their Japanese mothers imagined it would be at all.

Why were the women called "picture brides"?

The women were called picture brides because that is literally all their potential husbands saw of them in order to select them. Similarly, they were working only on a description given by the men in question. In some ways, it was similar to the present day online dating site, or dating app, because it relied on just a picture, and a personal description. They did not meet before hand, or even speak. They literally came to America based on a photograph and a brief biography - hence the term picture brides.