War Brides Research Articles

Beyond “Hanggang Pier Only”: Filipino American War Brides of Seattle, 1945-1965

Beyond “Hanggang Pier Only”: Filipino American War Brides of Seattle, 1945-1965

In Search of Asian War Brides

Because of the long presence of U.S. soldiers in Asia, war-bride marriages involving servicemen and Asian women have been formed throughout the century. The literature, however, contains little empirically sound information on Asian war brides. This analysis develops a methodology to identify war brides and applies it to estimate the number of war brides from the six major Asian groups, using the national 1980 Public Use Microdata Sample. Further analysis comparing Asian war brides with other groups of Asian wives tends to support the traditional and lower socioeconomic images commonly associated with Asian war brides.

Emanuel Celler of Brooklyn: Leading Advocate of Liberal Immigration Policy, 1945-52

Immigration was a prominent issue during the Truman era. Indeed, several significant laws were enacted at this time. These included the War Brides Act of 1945, the Displaced Persons Acts of 1948 and 1950, the Internal Security Act of 1950, the Immigration and Nationality (McCarran-Walter) Act of 1952, and some momentous measures relating to Mexican agricul- tural labour and the so-called wetback problem. Particularly noteworthy were the Displaced Persons Acts, which constituted the "first significant refugee legislation in American history" (Higham 1975, 61) and the Mc- Carran-Walter Act, which marked the end of the "long postwar debate over the nature of American immigration policy" (Divine 1957, 185-86).

Voices from the Shadows: The Lives of Korean War Brides

(1991). Voices from the Shadows: The Lives of Korean War Brides. Amerasia Journal: Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 15-30.

One century of foreign immigration to the United States: 1880-1979.

Due to declining fertility rates and increased numbers of immigrants, legal foreign immigration now comprises 1/4 of the US's annual population growth. This article uses 1900-1979 Immigration and Naturalization Service data on immigrants' intended destination to examine immigration policy and its effect on immigrants and the American people. From the US's beginnings to the 1880s, immigrants came mainly from Great Britain, Germany, and other Northern and Western European countries, in the 1890s; over 70% of immigrants came from Italy, Austria, Hungary, Russia, and Germany. Immigration had peaked at over 1 million persons a year at the outbreak of World War I, then declined sharply, and rose again greatly during the first 2 decades of the 20th Century. The first significant legislation to restrict ethnic groups was in the early 1880s with the Chinese Exclusion Act; In 1924, Congress passed the 2nd Immigration and Naturalization Act which used the 1890 census to set quotas for ethnic groups, and later used the 1920 census to fix quotas in the national origins system; both pieces of legislation favored Northern and Western Europeans. Immigration declined drastically during the 1930s and early 1940s, but the Displaced Persons Act, the War Brides Act, and 1950s legislation allowed more Asian refugees and some other ethnic groups to enter the country. The nationality origins quotas were eliminated in 1965, and were followed by dramatic changes in immigration character as persons from formerly low quota nations flooded into the US. 1976 and 1978 legislation made immigration still more equitable, and the Refugee Act of 1980 allowed admittance of 50,000 refugees with no regard for geographic or ideological biases. A preference system, in operation since 1924, has favored relatives of citizens and immigrants with certain skills. Females presently outnumber male immigrants, average immigrant age is 26.2 years, and over 1/2 of the immigrants since 1950 have been housewives, children, or others with no occupation. In the 1970s, 1 in 10 immigrants was a professional or technical worker, probably from Asia. In 1900, most immigrants headed for mainly northern, industrialized cities, especially New York. In recent years, too destinations have included New York, California, Washington, Texas, and Florida. Throughout the century, 3/5 immigrants went to only 5 states, so many states have received very few immigrants since 1900. Due to the amount spent on receiving refugees, and economic and job problems, many Americans think immigration should be greatly limited. Today's 1 million legal and illegal immigrants will continue to change the composition of the American population, as the long established Northern and Western European population declines.

What Happened to Jody

LIFE IN AN ARMY during wartime and life in prison anytime have a number of aspects in common, so it is not surprising when we find items of folklore shared by both camps. One mutual concern is who is doing what, with, and to the woman one left at home. Negro folklore, this concern is personified in the songs and toasts about one the Grinder-Jody, a contraction of Joe the, and a metaphor in folk use for a certain kind of coital movement. Jody's activities and life style are perhaps best described in the toast bearing his name. Roger Abrahams collected a version of Jody the Grinder in Philadelphia in the early i96o's.1 I collected a longer and more detailed version in Texas in I965. toast is pretty well dated by its content and slang: solid news and solid sender were out of circulation by the early I950's; Japanese war brides didn't start receiving much attention until some time after the American occupation of Japan was well under way, probably around I947. atom bomb and fall of Japan are so central they supply an absolute early cutoff date. One would be safe in assuming somewhere between 1947 and I950. But was around earlier. He is named in the brief blues Joe the Grinder, recorded by John A. Lomax from the singing of Irvin Lowry in Gould, Arkansas, in I939.2 During the war years, figured in the marching song Sound Off, a version of which is printed in Alan Lomax's Folk Songs of North America.3 Lomax says In many variants this was sung by all Negro outfits in World War II. Abrahams notes that This song is often called 'Jody's Song' and other similar ones 'Jody Calls.' 4 Woody Guthrie, in an undated note included in Born to Win, says, The best of marching I saw in my eight months in the army was to the folk words of a folky chant tune that went: Ain't no use in writin' home / Some joker got your gal an' gone. / Hey, boy, ya' got left, right? / Ho, boy, ya' got right. If Abrahams' version of the toast is at all representative of its current condition, it seems the toast is wearing down with age-younger performers have dropped the allusions and slang they don't understand, and, concomitantly, some of the narrative elements. man who performed the longer version printed here was sixtyfour and, fortunately, he is one of those uncreative folk performers incapable of destroying anachronisms in a text.

War Brides in Hawaii and Their In-Laws

In a sample of Japanese war brides 48 per cent of those with Japanese husbands have very congenial relationships with their in-laws. These were the only war brides in the sample who share the cultural background of their husbands' families. They are in contrast to the larger proportion of war brides who have congenial relationships with their in-laws to be found among the Japanese wives of non-Japanese (72 per cent), European wives of Japanese (60 per cent), and European wives of non Japanese (55 per cent). Evidently, sharing the cultural backgroud tends to restrict personal relations to the prescribed forms and to hamper spontaneous interaction, while where cultural backgrounds differ, behavior is determined by the necessity to adjust one's self to another on the basis of the situation at hand. There is then mutual roletaking and hence spontaneous identification of one's self with the other and appreciation of one another.

Cultural and Marital Adjustment of Japanese War Brides

This study does not confirm the assumptions of hasty marriage and severe cultural conflict frequently made about interracial marriages. The serviceman's stay in Japan averaged over four years, and courtships averaged about two years. Severe cultural conflict was not found in in-group and out-group relationships-husbands identified themselves with their wives' circles; there were no regrets and no serious in-law problems. Co-operation and adaptation were common, wives were learning English, and there were no religious conflicts. A study of age at marriage, educational attainment, residence separate from in-laws, first marriage, and average number of children all indicated stability rather than conflict.

Adapting Casework to the Needs of War Brides in England

Adapting Casework to the Needs of War Brides in England