:War bride

{{Short description|Women who marry foreign military personnel during a war or occupation}}

File:Australian Flight Officer reunites in Sydney with Canadian bride and daughter in 1945.jpg reunites in Sydney with Canadian bride and daughter in 1945.]]

War brides are women who married military personnel from other countries in times of war or during military occupations, a practice that occurred in great frequency during World War I and World War II.

Allied servicemen married many women in other countries where they were stationed at the end of the war, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, France, Italy,{{cite web|author=Francesco Conversano|author2=Nené Grignaffini|title=Italiani: spose di guerra. Storie d'amore e di emigrazione della seconda guerra mondiale|language=it|website=RAI Storia|url=http://www.raistoria.rai.it/articoli/italiani-spose-di-guerra-storie-damore-e-di-emigrazione-della-seconda-guerra-mondiale/34680/default.aspx}} Greece, Germany, Poland, Luxembourg, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Korea, and the Soviet Union. Similar marriages also occurred in Korea and Vietnam with the later wars in those countries involving U.S. troops and other anti-communist soldiers.

The term war brides was first used to refer to women who married Canadian servicemen overseas and then later immigrated to Canada after the world wars to join their husbands. This term later became popular during World War II. It first started when in January 1919, the Canadian government offered to transport all dependents of Canadian servicemen from Britain to Canada. This included free ocean transport (third class) and rail passage. There are currently no official figures for the numbers of war brides and their children. By the end of 1946, over forty thousand Canadian serviceman had married women from Europe.War Brides https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/war-brides

There is no exact number on the number of World War I European brides married to American soldiers. Research shows that between thousands to tens of thousands immigrated to the United States after World War I as war brides from Belgium, England, Ireland, France, Greece, Russia, Italy and Germany.[https://www.theworldwar.org/learn/about-wwi/spotlight-war-brides-great-war War Brides of the Great War]

After the end of World War II the number of women from Europe and Asia who became war brides to American soldiers was estimated in the hundreds of thousands.

There were various factors contributing to the intermarriages between foreign servicemen and native women. After World War II, many women in Japan came to admire the personal attributes and status of American soldiers, while there was also mutual attraction to Japanese women among American servicemen.{{cite book |last1=Lubin |first1=Alex |title=Romance and Rights: The Politics of Interracial Intimacy, 1945-1954 |date=July 2009 |publisher=Univ. Press of Mississippi |isbn=978-1-60473-247-4 |page=117 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=irbxyKFaQaIC&pg=PA117 |language=en}}{{cite news | title=From Hiroko to Susie: The untold stories of Japanese war brides | newspaper=Washington Post | date=2016-09-22 | url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2016/09/22/from-hiroko-to-susie-the-untold-stories-of-japanese-war-brides/?noredirect=on&wpisrc=nl_evening&wpmm=1 | access-date=2023-09-27}} British women were attracted to American soldiers because they had relatively high incomes, and were perceived as friendly.{{cite book | last=Lyons | first=J. | title=America in the British Imagination: 1945 to the Present | publisher=Palgrave Macmillan US | series=EBL-Schweitzer | year=2013 | isbn=978-1-137-37680-0 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QzOwAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA52 | access-date=2023-09-27 | page=52}} (A British catchphrase, "Overpaid, oversexed, and over here," also entered Australian popular culture.)

Marriage to Asian war brides had a significant impact on United States immigration law, as well as the public perception of interethnic, interracial, interfaith, and interdenominational couples. The massive migration of Asian wives to the United States was challenged by pre-existing laws against interracial marriage; however, there was widespread public sympathy for such couples, due to the high reputation of Japanese immigrant brides in the United States. This led to widespread defiance of the law by American servicemen, as well as increased tolerance for interethnic and interracial couples in the United States, and ultimately the repeal of the highly restrictive 1924 Immigration Act in 1952.

Philippine–American War

After the Philippine–American War, some Filipina women married U.S. servicemen. Those Filipinas were already U.S. nationals and so when they immigrated to the U.S., their legal status was made significantly different from that of previous Asian immigrants to the U.S.{{cite book|author=Uma Anand Segal|title=A Framework for Immigration: Asians in the United States|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fApm87FFxJ0C&pg=PA146|year=2002|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=978-0-231-12082-1|page=146}}

War brides in World War I

There are no official figures for war brides in World War I. One report estimated that 25,000 Canadian servicemen married British women during World War I. In World War II, approximately 48,000 women married Canadian servicemen overseas. By 31 March 1948, the Canadian government had transported about 43,500 war brides and 21,000 children to Canada.{{cite web |title=War Brides |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/war-brides |publisher=The Canadian Encyclopedia |access-date=26 August 2024}}

There is no exact number but research estimates on the number of World War I European brides married to American soldiers show that between 5,000 and 18,000 immigrated to the United States after World War I. The brides came from Belgium, England, Ireland, France, Russia, Italy and Germany.

War brides in World War II

File:American Boy Meets British Girl- Love and Romance on the Home Front, Bournemouth, England, 1941 D4757.jpg, England, 1941.]]

= United States of America =

After the end of World War II, 50,000 to 100,000 women from East Asia were married to American soldiers, and in total it is estimated that 200,000 Asian women migrated from Philippines, Japan and South Korea between 1945 and 1965.{{cite book | last1=Keller | first1=R.S. | last2=Ruether | first2=R.R. | last3=Cantlon | first3=M. | title=Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America, Set | publisher=Indiana University Press | year=2006 | isbn=978-0-253-34685-8 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=we2KvdT3zOsC&pg=PA180 | page=180}}{{cite web |url=http://www.americainwwii.com/stories/warbrides.htm |title=America in WWII magazine: War brides, france, england, russia, weddings, marriages, GIs |access-date=2015-05-27 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080105060751/http://www.americainwwii.com/stories/warbrides.htm |archive-date=2008-01-05 }}{{cite book |last1=Courtwright |first1=David T. |title=Violent Land: Single Men and Social Disorder from the Frontier to the Inner City |date=1 June 2009 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-02989-7 |page=201 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TLRtXWlNQI0C&pg=PA201 |language=en |quote= ...wives and family of American military personnel were permitted to enter the country under the War Brides Act of 1945. As a result, 200,000 Asian women immigrated to the United States from the Philippines, Korea, and Japan...}} The estimates for the war brides and military spouses from 1947 to 1975 from Japan totalled 66,681, from Korea 28,205, from the Philippines, 51,747,{{cite book | last1=Nadal | first1=K.L.Y. | last2=Tintiangco-Cubales | first2=A. | last3=David | first3=E.J.R. | title=The SAGE Encyclopedia of Filipina/x/o American Studies | publisher=SAGE Publications | year=2022 | isbn=978-1-0718-2901-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cGN7EAAAQBAJ&pg=PT1886 | page=1886}} from Thailand 11,660, and from Vietnam 8,040.{{cite book | last1=Mohl | first1=R.A. | last2=Van Sant | first2=J.E. | last3=Saeki | first3=C. | title=Far East, Down South: Asians in the American South | publisher=University of Alabama Press | series=The Modern South | year=2016 | isbn=978-0-8173-1914-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jBifDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA85 | page=85}}

The U.S. Army's Operation War Bride, which eventually transported an estimated 70,000 women and children, began in Britain in early 1946. The press dubbed it Operation Diaper Run. The first group of war brides (452 British women and their 173 children, and one bridegroom) left Southampton harbor on {{SS|Argentina|1929|6}} on January 26, 1946, and arrived in the U.S. on February 4, 1946.{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/mastersofair00dona|url-access=registration|title=Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany|last=Miller|first=Donald L.|date=2006-10-10|publisher=Simon and Schuster|isbn=9780743298322|language=en |pages=[https://archive.org/details/mastersofair00dona/page/518 518], 519}} According to British Post-War Migration, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service reported 37,553 war brides from the British Isles took advantage of the War Brides Act of 1945 to emigrate to the United States, along with 59 war bridegrooms.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L203AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA60 |title=British Post-War Migration |last=Isaac |first=Julius |year=1954 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=60}} Over the years, an estimated 300,000 foreign war brides moved to the United States following the passage of the War Brides Act and its subsequent amendments, of which 51,747 were Filipinas.{{cite news |title=Whatever happened to Filipino war brides in the US |author=Michael Lim Ubac |url=https://globalnation.inquirer.net/43451/whatever-happened-to-filipino-war-brides-in-us |newspaper=Philippine Daily Inquirer |date=July 2012}}

Other estimates suggest 200,000 women from Continental Europe were married to American soldiers.{{cite book |last1=Martone |first1=Eric |title=Italian Americans: The History and Culture of a People |date=12 December 2016 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing USA |isbn=978-1-61069-995-2 |page=41 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8hbHEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA41 |language=en}} An estimated 70,000 G.I. war brides left the United Kingdom, 15,500 from Australia,{{cite news|first=Peter |last=Mitchell |title=Aussie brides reunite |url=http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,21623761-5001028,00.html |publisher=The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) |date=2007-04-26 |access-date=2008-04-06 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071225064638/http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,21623761-5001028,00.html |archive-date=December 25, 2007 }} 14,000-20,000 from Germany,{{cite web|url=http://www.atlantic-times.com/archive_detail.php?recordID=363|title=The Atlantic Times :: Archive|access-date=2 February 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141225031525/http://www.atlantic-times.com/archive_detail.php?recordID=363|archive-date=25 December 2014}} and 1,500 from New Zealand, between the years 1942 and 1952, having married American soldiers.{{cite web |last1=Fortune |first1=Dr Gabrielle |last2=Pine |first2=Madison |date=2021-11-08 |title=Love in Wartime: War Weddings |url=https://www.aucklandmuseum.com/war-memorial/online-cenotaph/features/anzac-2021/weddings |access-date=2023-12-01 |website=Auckland War Memorial Museum}}

==Effect of Asian immigrant brides on United States immigration laws==

File:Japanese War Bride.jpg was sympathetic to the experiences of mixed couples, emphasizing their courage in the face of discrimination.{{cite book | last=Zeiger | first=S. | title=Entangling Alliances: Foreign War Brides and American Soldiers in the Twentieth Century | publisher=NYU Press | year=2010 | isbn=978-0-8147-9725-9 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XcZXzOSAr6YC&pg=PA195 | access-date=2024-08-26 | page=195}}]]

Around 50,000 United States servicemen married Japanese wives at the end of World War II and during the occupation period. 75% of the marriages involved white American soldiers and Japanese brides. Marriages to Asian women initially faced legal obstacles due to pre-existing laws against interracial marriage. However, the determination of American servicemen to marry Japanese women resulted in widespread defiance of the law.{{cite book | last=Zeiger | first=S. | title=Entangling Alliances: Foreign War Brides and American Soldiers in the Twentieth Century | publisher=NYU Press | year=2010 | isbn=978-0-8147-9725-9 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XcZXzOSAr6YC&pg=PA182 | access-date=2023-09-27 | page=182}} The positive reception of Japanese war brides generated sympathy from the general public about the difficulties faced by interracial couples, and promoted increased tolerance for interracial couples.{{cite book | last=Kovner | first=S. | title=Occupying Power: Sex Workers and Servicemen in Postwar Japan | publisher=Stanford University Press | series=Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University | year=2012 | isbn=978-0-8047-8346-0 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dj7NgDJnno4C&pg=PA66 | access-date=2023-09-27 | page=66}} In 1947, the War Brides Act was amended to give citizenship to the children of American servicemen regardless of race or ethnicity.{{cite book | last1=Zhao | first1=X. | last2=D | first2=E.J.W.P.P. | title=Asian Americans [3 volumes]: An Encyclopedia of Social, Cultural, Economic, and Political History [3 volumes] | publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing | year=2013 | isbn=978-1-59884-240-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6OPNEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1187 | access-date=2023-09-27 | page=1187}} Ultimately the effort to normalize interracial marriages to Japanese women led to the passage of the McGarran-Walter Act, which repealed the Immigration Act of 1924, thereby loosening restrictions on immigration and citizenship requirements for non-Northwestern European immigrants.{{cite book | last=Simpson | first=C.C. | title=An Absent Presence: Japanese Americans in Postwar American Culture, 1945–1960 | publisher=Duke University Press | series=New Americanists | year=2002 | isbn=978-0-8223-8083-2 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-piNLRFIQp8C&pg=PA165 | access-date=2023-09-27 | page=165}}

According to journalist Craft Young, a daughter of a Japanese war bride, an estimated 50,000 Japanese war brides migrated to the United States.{{cite news |title=Daughters tell stories of 'war brides' despised back home and in the U.S. |author=Lucy Alexander |url=http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2014/10/05/how-tos/daughters-tell-stories-war-brides-despised-back-home-u-s/#.VicY0Svak7A |newspaper=The Japan Times|date=October 5, 2014}}

However, according to the US consulate, they counted only over 8,000 marriages with 73% being white men and Japanese women by the end of the occupation.Cold War Country: How Nashville's Music Row and the Pentagon Created the Sound of American Patriotism By Joseph M. Thompson· 2024 [https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Cold_War_Country/NgLaEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=US+consulate+8,000+marriages+american+japanese&pg=PP82&printsec=frontcover]

= Australia =

File:StateLibQld_1_77690_English_war_brides_who_arrived_in_Brisbane_in_October_1945.jpg in October 1945]]

In 1945 and 1946 several bride trains were run in Australia to transport war brides and their children traveling to or from ships.

Robyn Arrowsmith, a historian who spent nine years researching Australia's war brides, said that between 12,000 and 15,000 Australian women had married visiting U.S. servicemen and moved to the U.S. with their husbands.{{cite web|url=http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/here-come-the-war-brides-a-love-story-65-years-on-20100417-slgs.html|title=Here come the war brides: a love story 65 years on|first=Scott|last=Ellis|date=18 April 2010|via=The Sydney Morning Herald}}

=United Kingdom=

File:Bud Neill's G I Bride.jpg's Lobey Dosser series by the G.I. Bride character (with her baby Ned), forever trying to hitchhike from the fictional Calton Creek in Arizona back to Partick in Scotland. The statue was erected in Partick station in 2011.{{cite web | title=Home at last! – Corporate Information – Strathclyde Partnership for Transport | website=SPT | date=1 February 2011 | url=http://www.spt.co.uk/corporate/2011/02/home-at-last/ | access-date=20 March 2016}}]] Many war brides came from Australia and other countries to Britain aboard HMS Victorious following World War II.{{cite web|url=https://www.britishpathe.com/video/australian-brides-in-england|title=Australian Brides In England|website=Britishpathe.com|access-date=14 July 2018}} Roughly 70,000 war brides left Britain for America, Canada, and elsewhere during the 1940s.{{cite web|url=https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-oe-barrett-war-brides-immigration-20141021-story.html|title= British war brides faced own battles during 1940s|website=Los Angeles Times|date= 20 October 2014|access-date=9 April 2019}}

=Canada=

In Canada, 47,783 British war brides arrived accompanied by some 21,950 children. From 1939, most Canadian soldiers were stationed in Britain, and as such, about 90% of all war brides arriving in Canada were British. Three thousand war brides came from the Netherlands, Belgium, Newfoundland, France, Italy, Ireland, and Scotland.{{cite web| url=http://www.canadianwarbrides.com/intro.asp |title= About the Canadian War Brides of WWII|website=Canadianwarbrides.com}} The first marriage between a Canadian serviceman and a British bride was registered at Farnborough Church in the Aldershot area in December 1939, just 43 days after the first Canadian soldiers arrived. Many of those war brides emigrated to Canada beginning in 1944 and peaking in 1946.Archived at [https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211205/O-PFVwsNuAk Ghostarchive]{{cbignore}} and the [https://web.archive.org/web/20140419234707/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-PFVwsNuAk&gl=US&hl=en Wayback Machine]{{cbignore}}: {{cite web| url = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-PFVwsNuAk| title = British War Brides Arrive In Canada (1944) | website=YouTube}}{{cbignore}} A special Canadian agency, the Canadian Wives' Bureau, was set up by the Canadian Department of Defence to arrange transport and assist war brides in the transition to Canadian life. The majority of Canadian war brides landed at Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, most commonly on the following troop and hospital ships: {{RMS|Queen Mary||2}}, {{RMS|Lady Nelson||2}}, {{SS|Letitia||2}}, {{RMS|Mauretania|1938|2}}, {{RMS|Scythia||2}} and {{SS|Île de France|||2}}.{{Cite web|url=https://www.pier21.ca/blog/jan-raska/major-waves-of-immigration-through-pier-21-war-brides-and-their-children|title=Major Waves of Immigration through Pier 21: War Brides and Their Children|last=Raska|first=Jan|website=Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21|access-date=2016-07-03|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160713100358/http://www.pier21.ca/blog/jan-raska/major-waves-of-immigration-through-pier-21-war-brides-and-their-children|archive-date=2016-07-13|url-status=dead}}

Significantly, an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 Newfoundland women married American servicemen during the time of Ernest Harmon Air Force Base's existence (1941–1966), in which tens of thousands of U.S. servicemen arrived to defend the island and North America from Nazi Germany during World War II and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. So many of those war brides settled in the U.S. that in 1966, the Newfoundland government created a tourism campaign specifically tailored to provide opportunities for them and their families to reunite.{{cite web |title=Marriage Between Americans and Newfoundlanders |url=http://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/society/american-marriages-stephenville.php |website=Heritage.nf.ca}}

The Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 has exhibits and collections dedicated to war brides.{{Cite web|url=https://www.pier21.ca/research/collections/online-story-collection/war-brides|title=War Brides {{!}} Pier 21|website=Pier21.ca|access-date=2016-04-02}} There is a National Historic Site marker located at Pier 21, as well.{{cite web|url=http://www.pier21.ca/ |title=Pier 21 Museum|publisher=Pier 21|access-date=2008-05-13}}

=Germany=

During and after World War II, the majority of German brides were married to white Americans, but some married non-White soldiers. European war brides who filed applications with US officials to emigrate to the United States were sometimes rejected, as there was less approval of interracial marriages involving African American or Filipino American males.{{cite book |last=W. Trotter |first=Joe |author-link= |title=African American Urban History Since World War II |year=2009 |pages= |language=en}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=S52REH6dw28C&dq=Second+Filipino+regiment+,+both+which+contained+many+mixed+race+families&pg=PA46 page 46]{{cite book |last=Enloe |first=Cythian |author-link= |title=Bananas Beaches and Bases Making Feminist Sense of International Politics |year=2000 |pages= |language=en}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=JgZ2_QFbEmMC&dq=British+women+black++soldiers+application+marriage&pg=PA71 page 71]{{cite book |last=Zeiger |first=Susan |author-link= |title=Entangling Alliances Foreign War Brides and American Soldiers in the Twentieth Century |year=2010 |pages= |language=en}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=XcZXzOSAr6YC&dq=Filipino+American+private+who+wished+to+marry+a+very+young+German+girl+with&pg=PA36 page 36]

=Italy=

During the campaign of 1943–1945, there were more than 10,000 marriages between Italian women and American soldiers.{{cite book|author=Silvia Cassamagnaghi|title=Operazione Spose di guerra: Storie d'amore e di emigrazione|date=26 February 2014|publisher=Feltrinelli|location=Milan|pages=319|isbn=9788858817216|language=it|url=https://books.google.com/books?isbn=8858817214}}

From relationships between Italian women and African American soldiers, mulattini were born; many of those children were abandoned in orphanages, because interracial marriage was then not legal in many US states.{{cite news|title=1943–1946: spose di guerra, storie d'amore e migrazione|date=2014-06-10|website=libereta.it|url=http://www.libereta.it/1943-1946-spose-guerra-storie-damore-migrazione.html|access-date=2016-10-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161010212232/http://www.libereta.it/1943-1946-spose-guerra-storie-damore-migrazione.html|archive-date=2016-10-10|url-status=dead}}{{cite web|author=Giorgio Boatti|title=Italia 1945, that's amore. Le spose di guerra oltreoceano|url=http://www.storiainrete.com/8894/xx-secolo/italia-1945-thats-amore-le-spose-di-guerra-oltreoceano/|website=Storiainrete.com|access-date=2016-10-10|archive-date=2018-08-29|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180829151239/http://www.storiainrete.com/8894/xx-secolo/italia-1945-thats-amore-le-spose-di-guerra-oltreoceano/|url-status=dead}}

=Japan=

A Japanese war bride is a woman who married an American citizen following the post WW II military occupation of their home country. Their spouses were typically GIs or soldiers.Herbison, Chico. Schultz, Jerry. "Quiet Passages: The Japanese War Bride American Experience." The Center for East Asian Studies: The University of Kansas

Japan's post-WWII occupation by America facilitated many interracial marriages between servicemen and Japanese women. Following Japan's defeat and post war food shortages, many women sought employment as a means to provide for their families. Many were also enamored by the status, power, and prestige the GIs carried with them because of their victory, and sought new economic opportunity through immigration to the United States.{{Cite book |last=Lee |first=Erika |title=The Making of Asian America |publisher=Simon & Schuster Paperbacks |year=2015 |location=New York}}

Several thousand Japanese who were sent as colonizers to Manchukuo and Inner Mongolia were left behind in China. Most of the Japanese left behind in China were women, most of whom married Chinese men and became known as "stranded war wives" ({{Lang|ja-latn|zanryu fujin}}).{{cite web|url=http://japanfocus.org/-Rowena-Ward/2374/article.html|title=Left Behind: Japan's Wartime Defeat and the Stranded Women of Manchukuo – The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus|first=The Asia Pacific|last=Journal|website=japanfocus.org}}[https://books.google.com/books?id=fDCsD-1zitUC&pg=PA59 Mackerras 2003], p. 59. Because they had children fathered by Chinese men, the Japanese women were not allowed to bring their Chinese families back with them to Japan and so most of them stayed. Japanese law allowed only children fathered by Japanese fathers to become Japanese citizens. It was not until 1972 that Sino-Japanese diplomacy was restored, which allowed those survivors the opportunity to visit or emigrate to Japan. Even then, they faced difficulties; many had been missing so long that they had been declared dead at home.

However, when President Truman signed the Alien Wife Bill, this loosened immigration restrictions by creating the 1945 War Brides Act, which allowed the spouses of servicemen to migrate without breaking the quotas set by the 1924 Immigration Act. Under the subsequent amendments in the 1946 and 1947 Soldier Brides Act, the time period for immigration was extended by 30 days, all of which led to the immigration of nearly 67,000 Japanese women between the years 1947 and 1975.{{Cite journal |last=Simpson |first=Caroline Chung |date=1998 |title="Out of an obscure place": Japanese War Brides and Cultural Pluralism in the 1950s |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/4/article/9587 |journal=Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies |volume=10 |issue=3 |pages=47–81 |doi=10.1215/10407391-10-3-47 |issn=1527-1986}} However, they were not permitted to naturalize until the passage of the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952, which banned using race as a factor in allowing residents to naturalize. New immigration legislation profoundly impacted Asian immigration patterns by making Asian war brides the largest instance of Asian women migrating to the United States. The migration of over 72,000 women over the span of just 15 years grew the Asian American population by 20%, which in turn gave many Japanese women increased attention in the public eye.

These women came from a diverse array of backgrounds ranging from poverty to upper-class, but all were devastated by the destruction and bombings wrought by the war. They often struggled to provide for themselves and their families due to post-war food, fuel, and employment shortages. Many met servicemen through jobs working on military bases as waiters, clerks, and secretaries. They often chose to move to the United States in hopes of forging a new life.

Japanese women who had immigrated post-WWII as war brides were used to help construct the Asian model minority stereotype. For example, the American Red Cross Brides' School in Japan advised them on how to correctly assimilate into mainstream American society. Their classes offered textbooks in home economics, U.S. history, housekeeping, child raising, and ultimately shaped the modern Japanese woman's beliefs so that these actions were in accordance with mainstream American views on gender roles. Some of these classes even taught women how to bake or to properly wear heels. The ideal wife was taught to be a good mother, homemaker and companion to her husband. Thus, by conforming to an idealized concept of how a good housewife behaved, these Japanese women often became model minorities promoted as what others should strive to personify, held up as examples of what an assimilated immigrant should look like. Further, with the passage of the Immigration Act of 1965, immigration could no longer be lawfully restricted by race, ethnicity, nationality or creed.

In spite of these language and behavioral classes, many Japanese women struggled to find a community, especially after the internment of hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans left them feeling displaced and unsure of their racial status in the context of segregation and post war xenophobia.

=Vietnam=

Some Japanese soldiers married Vietnamese women or fathered multiple children with the Vietnamese women who remained behind in Vietnam, and the Japanese soldiers themselves returned to Japan in 1955.{{Why|reason=Why did they remain after the end of the war in 1945 and why did they return to Japan in 1955?|date=October 2023}} The official Vietnamese historical narrative views them as children of rape and prostitution.{{cite web|date=2016-07-20 |title= Ben Valentine : Photographing the Forgotten Vietnamese Widows of Japanese WWII Soldiers|url= https://indomemoires.hypotheses.org/23318|location= |doi= 10.58079/q5o2|access-date=|last1= indomemoires}}{{cite web|last= Valentine |first=Ben |date=July 19, 2016 |title= Photographing the Forgotten Vietnamese Widows of Japanese WWII Soldiers |url= https://hyperallergic.com/306502/photographing-the-forgotten-vietnamese-widows-of-japanese-wwii-soldiers/|website=Hyperallergic |location= |access-date=}} The Japanese forced Vietnamese women to become comfort women along with Burmese, Indonesian, Thai and Filipina women, and they made up a notable portion of Asian comfort women in general.{{cite book |last= Min |first=Pyong Gap |author-link= |date=2021 |series=Genocide, Political Violence, Human Rights|title=Korean "Comfort Women": Military Brothels, Brutality, and the Redress Movement |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j5QdEAAAQBAJ&dq=%22Filipino%2C+Vietnamese%2C+Thai%2C+Indonesian+and+Burmese+women+collectively+also+seem+to+have+made+up+a+significant+proportion+of+the+ACW.%22&pg=PT70 |location= |publisher=Rutgers University Press|page= |isbn=978-1978814981}} Japanese use of Malayan and Vietnamese women as comfort women was corroborated by testimonies.{{cite book |last=Tanaka |first=Yuki |author-link= |date=2003 |title= Japan's Comfort Women|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mV5dymPXNBgC&dq=%22verify+that+other+Asian+women,+such+as+Vietnamese+and+Malaysians,+were+also+exploited+for+the+same+purpose+by+the+Japanese%22&pg=PA60 |location= |publisher=Routledge |page= 60|isbn=1134650124}}{{cite tweet |url=https://twitter.com/Mepaynl/status/593405098983878657|user=Mepaynl|number=593405098983878657 |title=Comfort women... |last= Lee |first=Morgan Pōmaika'i |date=April 29, 2015|access-date= |quote=}}{{cite book |last1=Stetz |first1=Margaret D. |last2=Oh |first2= Bonnie B. C. |author-link= |date= 12 February 2015|title= Legacies of the Comfort Women of World War II|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RW2mBgAAQBAJ&dq=tanaka+comfort+vietnamese+burmese&pg=PA126 |edition=illustrated|location= |publisher=Routledge |page=126 |isbn=978-1317466253}}{{cite book |last=Quinones |first=C. Kenneth |author-link= |date= 2021|title=Imperial Japan's Allied Prisoners of War in the South Pacific: Surviving Paradise |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q3NjEAAAQBAJ&dq=tanaka+comfort+vietnamese+burmese&pg=PA230 |location= |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |page=230 |isbn=978-1527575462}}{{cite book |last= Min |first=Pyong Gap |author-link= |date=2021 |series=Genocide, Political Violence, Human Rights|title=Korean "Comfort Women": Military Brothels, Brutality, and the Redress Movement |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j5QdEAAAQBAJ&dq=tanaka+comfort+vietnamese+burmese&pg=PT70 |location= |publisher=Rutgers University Press|page= |isbn=978-1978814981}}{{cite book |last= |first= |author-link= |date=2005 |title= Double Agency: Acts of Impersonation in Asian American Literature and Culture|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nIeBYY-TpMsC&dq=tanaka+comfort+vietnamese+burmese&pg=PA209 |location= |publisher= Stanford University Press|page=209 |isbn=0804751862}}{{cite book |last=THOMA |first= PAMELA |editor1-last=Vo|editor1-first= Linda Trinh|editor2-last=Sciachitano|editor2-first= Marian |author-link= |date= 2004|title= Asian American Women: The Frontiers Reader|edition=illustrated, reprint|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CNZ-DsVg5T8C&dq=tanaka+comfort+vietnamese+burmese&pg=PA175 |location= |publisher= U of Nebraska Press|page= 175 |isbn=0803296274|chapter=Cultural Autobiography, Testimonial, and Asian American Transnational Feminist Coalition in the "Comfort Women of World War II" Conference }} There were comfort women stations in areas that make up present-day Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, North Korea, and South Korea.{{cite book |last= Yoon |first=Bang-Soon L. |editor1-last=Kowner|editor1-first= Rotem |editor2-last=Demel|editor2-first= Walter |author-link= |date= 2015|series=Brill's Series on Modern East Asia in a Global Historical Perspective|title=Race and Racism in Modern East Asia: Interactions, Nationalism, Gender and Lineage |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6Tq2CAAAQBAJ&dq=tanaka+comfort+vietnamese+burmese&pg=PA464 |location= |publisher= BRILL|page=464 |isbn=978-9004292932|chapter=CHAPTER 20 Sexualized Racism, Gender and Nationalism: The Case of Japan's Sexual Enslavement of Korean "Comfort Women"|edition=reprint }}{{cite book |last1= Qiu|first1=Peipei |last2= Su |first2= Zhiliang|last3= Chen |first3= Lifei|author-link= |date= 2014 |title= Chinese Comfort Women: Testimonies from Imperial Japan's Sex Slaves|series=Oxford oral history series|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HDyFAwAAQBAJ&dq=tanaka+comfort+vietnamese+burmese&pg=PA215 |location= |edition=illustrated|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=215 |isbn=978-0199373895}} A Korean comfort woman named Kim Ch'un-hui stayed behind in Vietnam and died there when she was 44 in 1963, owning a dairy farm, cafe, U.S. cash, and diamonds worth 200,000 U.S. dollars.{{cite book |last=Soh |first=C. Sarah |author-link= |date= 2020 |title=The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan |series=Worlds of Desire: The Chicago Series on Sexuality, Gender, and Culture|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=ddfkDwAAQBAJ&q=tanaka+comfort+vietnamese+burmese|location= |publisher=University of Chicago Press|pages=159, 279 |isbn=978-0226768045}}

A number of Japanese soldiers stayed behind immediately after the war to stay with their war brides, but in 1954 they were ordered to return to Japan by the Vietnamese government and were encouraged to abandon their wives and children.{{cite web|url= https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/japans-emperor-empress-meet-children-abandoned-japanese-soldiers-wwii.html|title= Japan's Emperor and Empress Meet With Children Abandoned by Japanese Soldiers After WWII.|date=6 March 2017|accessdate=6 September 2022|author= Ian Harvey|publisher= War History Online (The place for military history news and views)|language=en}}

The now-abandoned Vietnamese war brides who had mothered children would be forced to raise them by themselves and often faced harsh criticism for having relations with members of an enemy army that had occupied Vietnam.

Korea

Korean war brides were those who married American GIs and immigrated to the United States to pursue opportunities for freedom and economic advancement. Many Korean women followed a similar path as the Japanese war brides above after Korea became an independent nation following Japan's defeat in WWII. After the decolonization of Japan's territories, concerns about the spread of communism and Cold War containment policies, in addition to the Korean War, brought many American soldiers to Korea. These war brides often met American servicemen in military bases through gambling halls, prostitution, or other illicit businesses. Much like their Japanese counterparts, many were convinced that Korea offered them little economic opportunity and success. They therefore saw marriage as a gateway into a new country full of wealth and prosperity.

Although it was a struggle for Korean war brides to assimilate into American society, they generally enjoyed greater economic opportunity in their new country. 6,423 Korean women married U.S. military personnel as war brides during and immediately after the Korean War.{{Cite book |last1=Yu |first1=Eui-Young |title=Korean women in transition: at home and abroad |last2=Phillips |first2=Earl H. |date=1987 |publisher=Center for Korean-American and Korean Studies, California State University |location=Los Angeles |pages=185}}

Vietnam War

8,040 Vietnamese women came to the U.S. as war brides between 1964 and 1975.Linda Trinh Võ and Marian Sciachitano, Asian American women: the Frontiers reader, University of Nebraska Press, 2004, p144.

Iraq and Afghanistan Wars

War brides from wars subsequent to Vietnam became less common due to differences in religion and culture, shorter durations of wars, direct orders, and a change in immigration and military laws. As of 2006, only about 2,000 visa requests had been made by U.S. military personnel for Iraqi and Afghan spouses and fiancées.{{cite news|title=In love AND WAR|publisher=Colorado Gazette|date=2006-08-13}} There have nevertheless been several well-publicized cases of American soldiers marrying Iraqi and Afghan women.{{cite news|url=http://www.indianexpress.com/oldStory/30471/|title=Two US soldiers defy order, marry Iraqi women|publisher=Indian Express|date=2003-08-28|access-date=2011-02-03|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110305045946/http://www.indianexpress.com/oldStory/30471|archive-date=2011-03-05|url-status=dead}}{{cite news|title=Few Battlefield Romances From Iraq |url=http://www.newsweek.com/2007/10/13/love-and-war.html |publisher=Newsweek |date=2007-10-13 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110119044230/http://www.newsweek.com/2007/10/13/love-and-war.html |archive-date=January 19, 2011 }}

References

External links

[http://uswarbrides.com/ "American War Bride Experience; Fact, Stories about American War Brides"; American War World II GI Brides. website]
[http://www.lonniestory.com/ Luxembourg War Brides; "The Meeting of Anni Adams: The Butterfly of Luxembourg"; American War Brides. website] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140517193900/http://lonniestory.com/ |date=2014-05-17 }}
[https://web.archive.org/web/20080525112516/http://warbrides.com.au/home/ Australian War Brides website]
[http://www.canadianwarbrides.com/ Canadian War Brides of WW II website]
[http://www.nlwarbrides.ca/ Newfoundland & Labrador War Brides website]
[http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/remembers/sub.cfm?source=history/secondwar/warbrides Canadian War Brides from Veterans' Affairs Canada website]
[http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/war-conflict/second-world-war/love-and-war-canadian-war-brides/topic---love-and-war-canadian-war-brides.html CBC Digital Archives – Love and War: Canadian War Brides]
[http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/war/us-forces-in-new-zealand/yankee-boys-kiwi-girls Yankee boys, Kiwi girls history webpage]
[https://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-WH2Prob-c15-7.html Marriages from Problems of the 2NZEF (eText of Official History of New Zealand in WW II)]
[http://library.christchurch.org.nz/Heritage/Photos/disc7/IMG0031.asp New Zealand servicemen and their war brides, 1946 (photo)]
[http://members.shaw.ca/francislyster/warbride Eswyn Lyster's Canadian War Bride page] – the book "Most Excellent Citizens"
[https://web.archive.org/web/20070509060535/http://bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=261776 War brides of World War II reunion 2007]
[http://ww1warbrides.blogspot.com/ Canadian War Brides of the First World War website]
[https://docslib.org/doc/13456598/ The ships of Operation War Bride]

Bride

Category:Wives