Japanese war brides and America — A brief tale
Hiroko Furukawa Tolbert, aka Susie, 89, ran the store, Tolbert’s Market, outside Elmira, New York. The store was renowned for promoting and hiring female staff. And yes, the establishment was successful, until Hiroko sold it off for her retirement.
Who is Hiroko?
After World War II, Japan was in a state of economic and political crisis. To prevent the country from starvation and social collapse, thousands of U.S. troops were deployed to Japan.
Hiroko, a Japanese war bride, is one of the 45,000 women who landed in the home towns of their American husbands after World War II. Her story is one among the thousands who came to America for love and also in search of a better life from the then defeated Japan.
Post-war Japan
Four years after Pearl Harbor, Japan’s emperor surrendered to the allied forces after witnessing a wave of firebombs and strategic atomic bombs dropped on its cities.
Skipping the intricate details, the country lost most of its young men to the war. And the ones who survived came back with physical and mental debilitations.
The war aftermath drove the population towards starvation, which forced Japanese women to discontinue their studies and work as maids, clerks, secretaries, babysitters. They even found work at nightclubs and cabarets.
Blossoming love at PX
Some of the war bride stories began at PX (aka army post exchange), the U.S. military operated retail outlets for soldiers. Military servicemen visited PX to buy American & European products they were familiar with.
At the store, soldiers exchanged pleasantries with Japanese women staff, and the brewing conversations coupled with meetups & dates matured into relationships.
However, the stories were not limited to PX; it also included encounters at post offices, restaurants, public places as well.
The U.S. government’s stand
The United States government, like Japanese elders, was not in favor of the liaison trend. The men faced huge legal hurdles coupled with negative public opinion. Post-war anxiety led the U.S. to worry about a possible influx of Japanese immigrants into their society, leading to possible backlashes from orthodox religious communities.
American men seeking to bring their Japanese wives into the country went through,
- The Immigration Act of 1924
- Several temporary laws in the late 1940s
- McCarran-Walter Act of 1952
Although the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 removed legal obstacles, interracial marriages were still forbidden, at least on books across half the nation. However, the Supreme Court in 1967 declared those laws unconstitutional. Thus, paving the way for legal recognition of the union.
Life at present
With Japanese war brides fading with time, their children, imparted with American values (on par with societal expectations), have come to admire their mother’s extraordinary resilience and determination towards a better future.
