Japanese War Brides: An Oral History Archive
Stories from across the United States as told to a daughter of a war bride
Yae Chiba waited for a long time for the American who fathered her child to return to Japan or send for her. He never did. Her daughter had a hard time as a mixed-race child in Japan, so Yae was relieved when she met another American who asked her to marry him. It was not a happy marriage, but for many years Yae accepted it as the cost of raising her child in the United States.
Yoshiko Hirate, a fun-loving young woman, married Zenas McClung, a strict southern Baptist from West Virginia. She said that after it became known she was dating an American, no Japanese man would have her.
For all their differences, it was a good marriage, until tragedy struck.
Hiroko was the pampered daughter of a Kyoto sushi chef. Don Roberts was one of nine children of a logging family in northern Wisconsin. Hiroko — Don called her Nancy — knew she had made a mistake shortly after arriving in the tiny town of Hiles, and wrote to the Red Cross for help returning to Japan. The obstacles to that seemed insurmountable, so she resigned herself to her life. When they are adults, her children discover her deep unhappiness, and a bit of her true nature, and they commit themselves to making her happy in her remaining years.
Sally Sachiko Blackwell had had enough. Nearly 20 years of following her Army husband from base to base with their two children and now she and the kids were headed from a posting in Okinawa to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. But at a plane layover in Hawaii, she was drawing the line.
When Toyo Kaneko went to her parents and said she wanted to marry Andrew Swartz, the tall U.S. Navy man she had been dating, here’s what her father told her: “When you marry, you don’t come back home. Don’t bring the baby and come home.” It sounds harsh, but it was a very common reaction by Japanese parents to their daughters marrying U.S. servicemen after World War II. Giving birth to a mixed-race baby meant no going back if the marriage failed. Toyo accepted the terms and was determined to make it work.
Michiko’s husband and daughter find her a mystery, the woman who kept much inside, worked very hard, and never went back to Japan.