Becoming A Japanese War Bride: An Oral History

By Kristopher Shirey

Told through the eyes of Fumiko, this oral history depicts her journey from Japan to the United States and how she became a Japanese
War Bride.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098300135

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Bibliography

PREFACE:

My grandma Fumiko was a Japanese war bride of an African American G.I., everyone in the family figured she’d have an amazing story to tell. Coming to the United States in 1952, the issues of her past drove Fumiko to follow her new husband Johnnie to the States. I tell Becoming a Japanese War Bride: An Oral History through vignettes using Fumiko’s voice. Set during the years of 1950 right before she met Johnnie, until 1983 when Johnnie died, this piece follows Fumiko from Japan to El Paso, Texas. Beginning with Fumiko’s youth in rural Japan, I explore her motivation for following Johnnie to the States.

She and I have always been very close, because of our similar personalities and the fact that our birthdays are six days apart. But, like the rest of my family, I never took the time to hear her story of being a war bride. The summer of 2012, Fumiko moved from El Paso, Texas to Sacramento, California to live with my parents. It was that summer that I began to write her story. There were many people on my mom’s side of the family who had talked about writing down my grandma’s story, but it seemed like I would be the first to actually do it.

It wasn’t my family or Fumiko’s past that drove me to write her story; instead it was one of my past professors, Micheline Marcom, telling my grammar class about why she wrote her novel, Three Apples Fell From Heaven, about her family. It was that book that made me realize if I didn’t write my grandma’s story it might never be written, so began to interview my grandma.

I took out a digital voice recorder, set Fumiko down at our kitchen table, and asked her to tell me her story. At first she resisted, as it isn’t customary for Japanese people to talk about the past (it’s a cultural thing). Only after I told her she’d be helping me with my thesis did she begin to open up.

Johnnie had been hard on his children to get a good education, and it was his pressure on them that made her feel that way too. So when she had the chance to help with my education, she welcomed the idea. Through my interviews with her, I learned about the loneliness she carried with her for many years even after she married Johnnie. This time I spent with her brought us closer, because we both opened up to each other when she shared her story. The already strong and amazing woman I knew became even more so after this experience.

Similar to other war bride oral histories, I began my piece with interviews. Unlike other war bride stories I have seen, I want to present a story about a Japanese woman who married a black man, and through her struggles illustrate the challenges some war brides had to face due to segregation and racism because they were married to a black man. Other war bride stories I read tended to focus on the bride’s experience with her G.I. husband and her experience in the States. Although this piece does relate Fumiko’s experience in the States and with her G.I. husband, it also relates her experience in