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MAŁGORZATA  
JARMOŁOWICZ-DZIEKOŃSKA1

 DOI: 10.15290/CR.2021.33.2.03

Department of Foreign Languages
Medical University of Bialystok, Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0402-0319

The picture bride 
phenomenon: 
A reflection on 
photography from 
a cultural perspective 
in Yoshiko Uchida’s 
Picture Bride

Abstract. Literature and photography have always encouraged critics to explore interactions between 
text and image. Within the scope of culture, they also show significant potential in terms of their schol-
arly application, since the photograph becomes a practical tool for studying literary works within the 
cultural matrix. The paper aims to use this means of visualisation in order to examine the picture bride 
phenomenon illustrated in Yoshiko Uchida’s novel Picture Bride (1987), which reveals that behind the veil 
of apparently prosperous and lifelong marriages, there is a harsh matchmaking system which—solely 
on the basis of personal networking and Japanese marriage intermediaries—allows for shipping pro-
spective wives from Japan to Japanese immigrants who settled in the United States a few decades earlier. 
Thus, the photograph constitutes a tool of analysis, which doubles as a tangible means of representation 
and a factual visualisation of metacognitive imagery. 

Keywords: picture bride phenomenon, photography, Japanese-American literature. 

As a growing field of inquiry, the relationship of literature to photography has always 
offered illuminating insights into conceptual patterns interweaving literary and photo-
graphic tissue. These “ ‘photo-textual’ experiments,” as François Brunet (2013: 12) calls 

1 Address for correspondence: Department of Foreign Languages, Medical University of Bialystok, 
ul. Mickiewicza 2C, 15-222 Bialystok, Poland. E-mail: malgorzata.jarmolowicz-dziekonska@umb.
edu.pl



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them, have revealed an unexplored space of meaning, which calls for further concep-
tualisation with a perspective of bridging the two fields in terms of their theoretical 
capacity. Brunet, attempting “to complete the depiction of a process of hybridization” 
(12), simultaneously emphasises that such patterns, already present in the history of 
literary and photographic co-existence, concern “especially photography’s relationship 
to reality, presence, and representation—particularly of the self. Still, this history is 
envisioned primarily as cultural, linking ideas and practices in an investigation of art 
in society” (12). Hence, photography has become an instrument that enables claiming 
agency with regard to the reflection of a particular reality and the construction of an 
identity corresponding to a pictorial image, which enhances the process of identification 
of the self. Because of the fact that photography “has become in itself a paradigm event 
and something of a literary genre” (31), its connections to literature have also under-
gone a considerable change in terms of their mutual reference. As Brunet delineates, 
with the advent of this invention the balance between the ocular and the textual fluctu-
ated in the interstices of their reciprocal interaction: “On one side, photography was the 
end of ‘literature’ in the sense of vain textual speculation; on the other, ‘literature’ in 
the sense of record of the imagination was the image of photography” (22). Nevertheless, 
within the scope of criticism, photography has succeeded in carving out its own space 
and is regarded as an autonomous means of expression. The critic distinguishes its 
significance and an independent theoretical trajectory, which has earned its own 
conceptual field of recognition: “Even though a lot of its traditional social uses remain 
seemingly untouched, photography’s historic alternative as a medium—to supplant 
literature, or to become a new literature—would seem to have been resolved in favour 
of the second term, especially given … literature’s own marriage to photography” (110).

With an interdisciplinary lens applied to this phenomenon, critics could search 
for yet a deeper meaning bonding the two conceptualisations within the purview 
of their theoretical horizons. Although the photograph is commonly perceived as a 
strictly visual, speaking-for-itself conveyance of representation, it is capable of creat-
ing more textual reference than meets the eye as its figurative means of parlance can 
transfigure the potential vectors of interpretation. Thus, it constitutes a tool of analy-
sis which doubles as a tangible means of representation and a factual visualisation of 
metacognitive imagery. Sean Ross Meehan (2008: 14) points out that in spite of the fact 
that photography is considered to be “a crucially metonymic medium,” the process of 
representation and reproduction engage it in a dynamic interaction: “Photography is 
a communication medium because it is a means for representing an image (the photo-
graphic product or photograph) and a technology, by way of photo-chemical exposure 
and development, for reproducing that image (the photographic process). This dynamic 
relation between representation and reproduction marks the complex character of the 
medium.” Furthermore, another reference needs to be made to the characteristics of the 



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photograph, namely the way in which it articulates itself through the process of perfect 
mimicry, producing a facsimile of a subject. As Stuart Burrows (2010: 205) explicates, 
imitative representation encapsulated in mimesis, attributable to painted subjects, 
differentiates a photograph from a painting mainly due to its flawless emulating capac-
ity which renders an exact image of a photographed person or object: “Photographed 
subjects do not look like ‘something’ precisely because they are that thing. Whereas a 
painting opens up a gap between the thing and its representation—the gap that … is 
crucial to the existence of mimesis, which operates via a model of original and copy—
photography conflates the two, rendering the thing and its image consubstantial.” 
Analysing distinctive qualities of the photograph, Susan Sontag (1973: 12) additionally 
expounds that the act of photographing transgresses a passive act of observation, since 
it requires an active involvement on the part of the non-inert photographer: “Even if 
incompatible with intervention in a physical sense, using a camera is still a form of 
participation. Although the camera is an observation station, the act of photograph-
ing is more than passive observing.” All the aforementioned properties of photography 
make it a unique vehicle of representation, which allows for a substantial extension of 
interpretative measures in comparison with other media of articulation.

The noetic reading of photography with its hues of subjective understanding relating 
to inner wisdom—noēsis, as its Greek etymology indicates—opens up a new space for 
parenthetical analysis which may extend beyond the realms of common interpretative 
measures. W. J. T. Mitchell (1994: 2-3) emphasises the necessity of examining bipolar 
vectors of representation with reference to their historical frameworks: “What we need 
is a critique of visual culture that is alert to the power of images for good and evil and is 
capable of discriminating the variety and historical specificity of their uses.” However, 
not only historical contexts should pave the way for heterogeneous perspectives pertain-
ing to the conceptualisation of photography theory. In fact, Pierre Taminiaux (2009:11) 
voices “the need for an aesthetic perspective on photography that goes beyond a time-
delineated cultural approach.” Such a view capacitates applying a more unconventional 
visualisation to the entire concept, which is provided within an interdisciplinary scope. 
David Cunningham et al. (2008: 1) state that while the “field of interdisciplinary critical 
practice remains problematic, it also promises much of value and interest.” Hence, as 
the critics continue, it is necessary to focus on

 
a critical encounter between different approaches to such problems in order to enable the 
possibilities of research on literature and photography to be more effectively conceived 
and pursued. Its aim is not simply to question photography’s idea of literature, nor 
literature’s idea of photography. Rather, it seeks to trace the heterogeneity of conceptions 
of the intersections between the literary and the photographic from a variety of critical 
and historical perspectives. (1-2)



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The medium of photography may erode the transparency of the text and become a 
repository of multi-dimensional interpretations through translating the rhetoric of 
image and text into spatial and time experiences within cultural and historical frame-
works, thus assuming different roles of representation. According to Brunet (2013: 114), 

“the large-scale reshuffling of cultural functions between literature and photography” 
has already been observed, which necessitates further investigation and searching for 
new means of critical examination. On the part of the critic, this requires a particu-
lar sensitivity to certain cultural planes of reference. As every society has developed 
a set of cultural codes, according to which they function and fit into reality, a consid-
erable disparity between occidental and oriental customs and practices can often be 
immediately noticed by foreigners of distinct origin, let alone cultural nuances among 
the inhabitants of various regions of the same country. Therefore, different concep-
tual tools need to be applied with regard to such idiosyncratic specificities. Japanese-
American literary works need to be read from a perspective that takes into account their 
cultural and historical heritage in order not to be misinterpreted through far-fetched 
fallacies or incongruities—not uncommon for postcolonial criticism, whose weaknesses 
have been pointed out by Edward Said and other critics. Expanding the discourse with 
this aim in mind, there is another extension that requires to be outlined with reference 
to the conceptualisation of self-representation. It draws from a cultural background 
and focuses on deploying a photograph not for the sake of aesthetic contemplation but 
with the purpose of constructing an informative means of intercultural communication, 
which will be discussed further.  

The established position of photography in creating cultural memory has been recog-
nised for centuries. Since, according to Barbara Misztal (2003:13), “cultural memory 
refers to people’s memories constructed from the cultural forms and to cultural forms 
available for use,” the photograph forges a tangible connection with the past, which 
grants this medium a status of autonomous representation by the means of various 
cultural forms. As the author continues, “[t]hese cultural forms are distributed across 
social institutions and cultural artefacts such as films, monuments, statues, souve-
nirs and so on. Cultural memory is also embodied in regularly repeated practices, 
commemorations, ceremonies, festivals and rites” (13). For a long time, the photo-
graph has served as an arbitrary and unmediated means of expression which, due to 
its ocular-centric properties, has been granted a putative role of transparency. Linda 
Haverty Rugg (1997: 134) emphasises that photography immediately became the lingua 
franca of visual representation: “One of photography’s roles as an invention, in fact, was 
to invent internationalism. It is the popular assumption that images, unlike language, 
do not require translation, and photographs, infinitely and inexpensively reproduc-
ible shortly after the medium’s invention, could reach across both national boundaries 
and classes, speaking to the literate and illiterate alike.” However, it soon transpired 



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that the purported neutrality of the photograph is illusive and one cannot ascribe to 
this means a universal framework of interpretation, as the ignorance of such factors 
as historical or socio-cultural contexts may distort its overall meaning and intended 
purpose of communication.

Another aspect worth pointing out relates to the conspicuous entanglement of the 
photograph with time, which constitutes a fundamental plane of critical reference. 
Time fluctuations reflected in the events caught in the camera’s eye during one’s lifetime 
are capable of rendering the exact trajectory of the subject’s life and hence, as Sontag 
(1973: 15) explicates, a set of photographs may become a reflection of one’s internalised 
values and experiences, reminiscent of human impermanence and irrevocable demise: 

“All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another 
person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this 
moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.” The photo-
graph has always been recognised as an instant vehicle of memory that enables travel-
ling back in time, especially for family gatherings. Sontag delineates that “[m]emori-
alizing the achievements of individuals considered as members of families (as well as 
of other groups) is the earliest popular use of photography. For at least a century, the 
wedding photograph has been as much a part of the ceremony as the prescribed verbal 
formulas. Cameras go with family life” (8). However, not only such ceremonial occa-
sions gave an opportunity for taking photographs. The medium of photography imme-
diately entered the world of bureaucracy and in an instant became an indispensable 
part of human identity, which—according to Sontag—renders it a staple tool for confir-
mation of one’s existence in the contemporary world:

The industrialization of photography permitted its rapid absorption into rational—that 
is, bureaucratic—ways of running society. No longer toy images, photographs became 
part of the general furniture of the environment—touch-stones and confirmations of that 
reductive approach to reality which is considered realistic. Photographs were enrolled 
in the service of important institutions of control, notably the family and the police, as 
symbolic objects and as pieces of information. Thus, in the bureaucratic cataloguing of 
the world, many important documents are not valid unless they have, affixed to them, 
a photograph-token of the citizen’s face. … Photographs are valued because they give 
information. (21-22)

At this point it is worth mentioning that apart from its informative properties, the 
photograph gained the status of a visual matchmaker and, due to its illustrative value, 
became an unofficial means of identification in an Asian cultural background. At the 
beginning of the twentieth century, the Japanese developed a customary practice 
of marriage arrangement which became known as the picture bride phenomenon. 



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Portrait photographs of would-be-spouses were exchanged before the couple got 
married. Although face recognition was a primary objective behind this concept, the 
photograph did not act as a token of artistic representation but relied heavily on intro-
ducing a prospective personal bond with a previously unknown person. Thus, the first 
step to forging and cultivating an intimate relationship led in the contrary direction to 
the commonly held practices—through familiarizing with a future spouse in the photo-
graph and then meeting him or her in person after a long-haul journey from Japan to 
the United States. 

The life of a Japanese picture bride, Hana Omija, depicted by Yoshiko Uchida in the 
novel Picture Bride, reveals a potent point of convergence between the past and the 
present, constituting an informative framework which helps to familiarise with the 
cultural code based on “picture brides who went with nothing more than an exchange 
of photographs to bind them to a strange man” (Uchida 1997: 3). Figuratively speak-
ing, the whole conceptualisation is enclosed in a photograph, since only this medium 
serves as a tool of agency and, at the same time, constitutes a remnant of the past. Rugg 
(1997: 156) gives prominence to the fact that photographs, acting as fragmented pieces 
in bodily form, present specific moments which are taken out of the time frame and 
translated into infinity: “Like allegorical objects, photographs function as ‘fragments’ 
in that they are moments blasted from the continuum of time, rendered spatial and 
shrunk to miniatures.” The title of the novel encapsulates the picture bride phenom-
enon in the same way, which makes it the core trajectory of Hana’s story. The Japanese-
American author delves into her ancestral—albeit fictitious—past, dedicating the work 
to all the unvanquished female souls who a century earlier embarked on the ship to 
the United States to seek a better future. An epigraph at the beginning of the novel may 
simultaneously double as an epitaph on a memorial monument: “In memory of those 
brave women from Japan who travelled far, who endured, and who prevailed.” In fact, 
an image of a picture bride, an unidentified woman from the early 1900s, speaks to the 
reader from the front cover of the book. Thus, the black-and-white photograph becomes 
a leading trope and a catalyst of the story as the novel gradually unfolds.

The phenomenon would not have gained such a resonance among the Japanese if it 
had not been for the American governmental immigration policy based on racist and 
discriminatory principles. According to Lauren Kessler (1994: 13), the beginning of 
the twentieth century saw the greatest wave of emigration from Japan: “From 1901 to 
1907 almost 110,000 Japanese—most of them young, male, literate, rural and from the 
respectable farming class—ventured to America.” What needs to be taken into account 
is the fact the majority of the Japanese who arrived in the United States between 1885 
and 1907 were single men in their youth who wanted to earn enough money and return 
to their motherland. As Kessler continues, “they saw themselves as dekaseginin, or 
temporary sojourners. Their plan was simple: work hard for three to five years, saving 



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every penny they could; then return triumphantly to Japan, to either rebuy the land 
they lost to taxes or expand their holdings and fund new ventures. The sacrifices would 
be great, but the rewards greater” (10). What is more, they were conscientiously selected 
citizens who, with their thorough education, were supposed to form a group of proper 
representatives. Elaine H. Kim (1982: 122-123) pinpoints the fact that due to such a 
broadly crafted campaign, the issei—first-generation Japanese immigrants—were rela-
tively high-spirited and eager to head for America:

They had had opportunities to become familiar with the currents of Western thought 
and modern Western life; in the cities especially, information about important social, 
political, economic, and cultural world trends was readily available. … Moreover, the 
Japanese government not only screened immigrants carefully to make sure that they 
would properly represent their motherland abroad but also gave an official briefing for 
each immigrant, during which he could become acquainted with some of the rudiments 
of American life. For the most part, the issei had a highly positive attitude towards 
America when they left Japan.

Over time, their optimism for a bright future often turned into disappointment as 
they encountered many obstacles which prevented them from achieving their goals. 
Poverty and a lack of family in an alien country precluded their further development, 
which resulted in the occurrence of the so-called picture bride phenomenon. It was 
created out of necessity to help the Japanese settle down and raise their economic and 
social status. Indeed, the demand for Asian wives was so significant that bringing in 
Japanese women became a widely accepted and frequently noticed practice. Helen Zia 
(2001: 5-6) attributes such a turn of events to laws which were highly unpropitious for 
Asians: “Finding marriageable suitors was not a problem for women from Asia. For 
more than half a century before World War II, several racially discriminatory laws 
prohibited Asian men from becoming U.S. citizens or marrying outside their race. The 
United States also barred women from China, India, and the Philippines from immi-
grating. The combined impact of these prohibitions created generations of lonely Asian 
bachelor societies in America.” The law appeared to be more lenient for the Japanese as 
from 1907 it enabled them to ship into the United States their wives, or—in many cases—
wives-to-be (which, in fact, was exercised as a loophole):

According to the Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1907, Japanese immigrants were able to 
bring in wives as non-laborers and to establish families in America as their Chinese 
predecessors were unable to do, but Japanese laborers were excluded from immigration. 
By 1924, when all Japanese immigration was finally halted by law, over 14,000 Japanese 
women had come, mostly as ‘picture brides,’ to join husbands they had seen only in 



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photographs. … the arrival of the picture brides helped encourage Japanese men to set 
down roots in American society, and the presence of women and, later, children allowed 
them to consider family-operated farms and small enterprises. (Kim 1982: 124)

The picture-bride system, called shashin kekkon (denoting ‘photo-marriage’), relied on 
arranged marriages, which has constituted a staple of Japanese cultural tradition for 
centuries. Since marriage was a matter of not only personal but also, and predominant-
ly, familial and community significance, it involved employing a go-between in order 
to select the best match for a spouse-to-be. Ester Mikyung Ghymn (1995: 74) observes 
that “[a] professional matchmaker usually worked as an agent. Working on commis-
sion, he or she made marriages in the manner of modern real estate transactions. The 
matchmaker sometimes exaggerated the qualities of the prospective mates, hoping to 
close a successful deal.” This practice propelled a series of mishaps which eventually 
led to a gruesome predicament, where love and romance did not have a voice. As Kessler 
(1994: 36) emphasises, “romance was not, at least initially, a part of any pairing. Marital 
matches were arranged by outside intermediaries who might take many factors into 
consideration, but generally not the personal feelings of those they would be uniting. … 
Women … were supposed to sit back and wait for their families to arrange their futures.” 
Ghymn indicates that the magnitude of the problem was significant as the prospects 
of a fabulous future transfigured into the greatest disillusionment of their lives: “The 
brides frequently became victims of false advertising. In many instances, marriage was 
not a state of emotional fulfilment but one of business. Marriage customs were rigid 
and cruel, rigid in adherence to society and superstition, cruel to the individual spirit” 
(1995: 74). Thus, many young women who fell prey to such intermediaries had to carry 
the burden of their contrivance for the rest of their lives. 

Hana, the daughter of one of the last samurai, is among those females who become 
attracted to such an arrangement. She finds out from her uncle, serving as a matchmak-
er, about “the lonely man who ha[s] gone to America to make his fortune in Oakland, 
in California” (Uchida 1997: 2), and is seeking a wife from overseas. Bearing in mind 
the fact that she “was twenty-one, finding a proper husband for her had taken on an 
urgency that produced an embarrassing secretive air over the entire matter” (2). Her 
uncle pictures the man in bright colours, drawing a portrait of Taro Takeda as “a consci-
entious, hard-working man who has been in the United States for almost ten years. He is 
thirty-one, operates a small shop and rents some rooms above the shop where he lives. 

… He could provide well for a wife” (2). The thought of gaining independence speaks 
to Hana instantly as she “felt a faint fluttering in her heart. Perhaps this lonely man in 
America was her means of escaping both the village and the encirclement of her family” 
(4). The Japanese women, accustomed to various manifestations of male supremacy, 
frequently did not and could not recognise their individuality as autonomous entities. 



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As Kessler (1994: 37-38) expounds, the life of a Japanese wife was miserable enough 
and hardly bearable: “Isolated from her own friends and family, she lived to serve and 
procreate. If she was fortunate enough to bear a male heir, her status improved some-
what, but she would have little control over the household in which she lived—or, for 
that matter, over her own life.” For Hana, a well-educated woman, in contrast to the 
majority of Japanese female society, the prospects of remaining in Japan seem to be 
not only a harbinger of a mundane future but, most of all, a major hindrance to her 
own development and creativity. Her point of view finds confirmation in the attitude 
of her sister’s husband, who notices her individuality and firmness soon enough to give 
it proper condemnation. As the head of the family in a patriarchal society, he cannot 
bear female autonomy, even if it finds its reflection only in her words: “Although he 
never said so, Hana guessed he would be pleased to be rid of her, the spirited younger 
sister who stirred up his placid life with what he considered radical ideals about life and 
the role of women. He often claimed that Hana had too much schooling for a girl. She 
had graduated from Women’s High School in Kyoto, which gave her five more years of 
schooling than her older sister” (Uchida 1997: 4). He believes that education “has addled 
her brain” (4) but, in fact, it is a statement of his insecurity towards a well-read woman, 
who might have much broader knowledge about the world than himself. 

Undoubtedly, such a journey required a substantial courage on the part of a female 
and, as Kim (1982: 249) reasons, “Asian women who chose to immigrate to the United 
States as wives and picture brides were probably more adventuresome than average. 
Some, perhaps, were eager to escape from a shadowy past. Others undoubtedly wished 
to escape the social strictures of their village lives.” The aforementioned individual 
freedom must have been a great enticement as well, but their attitudes apparently also 
reflected a pressing sense of frustration and constituted the last resort to change their 
unfavourable course of life. According to Paul Spickard (2009: 36), a promise of a more 
manageable future was for the picture brides the most appealing factor: “For their part, 
migration to America was attractive to some Japanese women, even if they had to marry 
to make the trip. It was an adventure. Living standards were higher in North America. 
Sex roles were less hierarchical. Responsibilities to extended kin were less onerous. In 
the more fluid social situation of a migrant community, a woman had a greater chance 
than in Japan of carving out a degree of autonomy for herself.” Indeed, Hana’s spirit 
longs for independence, since she believes that only the wings of uncurbed freedom 
will make her a self-fulfilled woman, and she is eager to follow the wind of fate that 
could bring her to this destination. The sacrifice of coming to another continent seems 
to fade in the distance, as the reward may bring the desired fruit of satisfaction. Uchida 
(1997: 3) offers a conscientious study of a self-aware woman who seeks a space for herself 
where her free will would not be subjected to constant abuse and distortion:



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Hana knew she wanted more for herself than her sisters had in their proper, arranged 
and loveless marriages. She wanted to escape the smothering strictures of life in her 
village. She certainly was not going to marry a farmer and spend her life working beside 
him planting, weeding and harvesting in the rice paddies until her back became bent 
from too many years of stooping and her skin turned to brown leather by the sun and 
wind. Neither did she particularly relish the idea of marrying a merchant in a big city 
as her two sisters had done. Since her mother objected to her going to Tokyo to seek 
employment as a teacher, perhaps she would consent to a flight to America for what 
seemed a proper and respectable marriage.

The only obstacle she has to overcome is the final decision of the family, as a mutual 
consent on the part of both families might give her a preliminary passport to a brighter 
future. In response, the relatives “all nodded, each of them picturing this merchant in 
varying degrees of success and affluence” (3). It does not need to be overtly stressed that 
in such a patriarchal arrangement it was the male who supervised the major decisions 
and directed the flow of the family life according to his will. Ghymn (1995: 85) notes that 
this came as no surprise to the majority of Japanese women, since they “were taught 
that they were inferior to men. As children their brothers were always favoured, and 
as wives they were told to obey their husbands. It was considered a woman’s duty and 
honour to obey her father and husband at all times.” Thus, Hana’s mother, after discuss-
ing the matter mostly with the male members of the family and the village priest—since 

“[a] man’s word carried much weight for Hana’s mother” (Uchida 1997: 4)—finally agrees 
to the further development of events: “an exchange of family histories and an investiga-
tion was begun into Taro Takeda’s family, his education and his health, so they would 
be assured that there was no insanity or tuberculosis or police records concealed in 
his family’s past. Soon Hana’s uncle was devoting his energies entirely to serving as a 
go-between for Hana’s mother and Taro Takeda’s father” (4). 

In the subsequent period, Hana and Taro begin exchanging their letters and photo-
graphs. It was supposed to be the most convenient way of bringing the matter to a 
successful end as it saved time and the cost of travel. According to Spickard (2009: 36), 
another relevant reason on the part of a male might pertain to the fact that he wanted 

“to avoid exposing himself to the Japanese military draft by going home”. The exchanges 
between the couple are rather laconic accounts of their personal lives, without a hue of 
intimacy or a romantic tinge: “When at last an agreement to the marriage was almost 
reached, Taro wrote his first letter to Hana. It was brief and proper and gave no more 
clue to his character than the stiff formal portrait taken at his graduation from Middle 
School. Hana’s uncle had given her the picture with apologies from his parents because 
it was the only photo they had of him, and it was not a flattering likeness” (Uchida 1997: 
4). Over time, the relationship does not become tighter, as neither of them is willing to 



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confide their innermost thoughts to the mute person in the portrait. In this case, the 
photograph does not assume the role of a remainder of an affectionate relationship from 
the past, since the person depicted in it remains a mysterious figure of non-reference—
without a voice, familiar gestures or other sensory sensations. Thus, instead of evoking 
memories to cherish every time one looks at it, the picture reveals an air of a transient 
sensation, which cannot form into a common sign of representation. It can be treated 
in terms of corporeal art, as its visual properties are the only informative clues one 
may acquire at the first examination. Despite several consequent letters which Hana 
receives in the meantime, the mutual emotional distance between the future spouses 
does not shrink: “By the time he sent her money for her steamship tickets, she had 
received ten more letters, but none revealed much more of the man than the first. In 
none did he disclose his loneliness or his need, but Hana understood this. In fact, she 
would have recoiled from a man who bared his intimate thoughts to her so soon. After 
all, they would have a lifetime together to get to know one another” (5).

The picture bride arrangement was focused mainly on achieving a final goal of 
marital union and less—if at all—on the means by which it was reached. The fact that 
the pair met through photographs, which rendered only physical features of a person, 
was one of the sufficient determinants for accepting each other and the first step 
towards a new life together. The future spouses, who were treated by their families like 
mere commodities, gazed from the photographs like lifeless mannequins on display in 
a store. The portrait of Hana becomes a token of her only apparent freedom because 
she is going to pass from the hands of her family to her future husband. At least she can 
live with a hope of forthcoming salvation and marrying a man who will meet her expec-
tations. According to further proceedings, after a long-distance marriage proposal had 
been accepted, a bride married an absent groom in a Japanese ceremony in order to 
qualify for a passport: 

If the families agreed to the marriage, a mock wedding took place in the home village 
with a stand-in for the groom, and the woman’s name was transferred to the man’s family 
register. Then, making use of the loophole in the gentlemen’s agreement, the new wife 
or ‘picture bride’ could secure a passport and journey to America to see her husband 
for the first time. Between 1909 and 1920, when the so-called Ladies’ Agreement halted 
the immigration of picture brides, almost forty-five thousand Japanese women came to 
America. Most, like the men who preceded them, were young southern Japanese from 
respectable farming families (Kessler 1994: 39).

However, this was not always the case, as in further years, American state govern-
ments ceased to recognise proxy wedding ceremonies. Spickard (2009: 37) explains 
that the ramifications of such actions altered the course of the proceedings: “As a 



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result, some husbands married their wives at dockside, or in religious or civil ceremo-
nies a few days later. Some wives, feeling defrauded, insisted on returning home. Some 
swapped husbands on the dock; others were swapped by the men who had paid their 
passage. But most women and men honoured the commitment they had made and 
quietly settled down to their new lives.” Although the photographs often turned out to 
be outdated or fake, the majority of the picture brides humbly assumed their responsi-
bilities and embarked on a new life. As Zia (2001: 30) states, “[i]n 1900, there were about 
one thousand Japanese women in the United States, but that number increased until 
39 percent of Japanese immigrants were female. … The U.S. government refused to 
recognize the legality of the Japanese picture bride marriages, and the public derided 
Japanese women as immoral, even though photo matchmaking was common and toler-
ated among European immigrants.” As a matter of fact, the photograph became a useful 
tool of transnational migration, since it served as a medium of transition and doubled 
as a mute intermediary. The camera assumed the role of a typewriter which produced 
a pictorial letter. However, photography treated as a source of information did not turn 
out to be an inerrant vehicle of representation. The elusiveness of this mode of repre-
sentation was articulated in its apparent flawlessness in terms of image rendering. 
The picture, reconfiguring temporality, usually presented a silhouette of a fine young 
gentleman in his prime. Blurring the boundary between the present and the past, the 
photograph—taken decades ago—often did not depict the actual image of the man and, 
in reality, the picture bride had to face a tarnished shadow of his past. In the voiceless 
photograph, the male image spoke for itself—ultimately triggering bitter disappoint-
ment, since the woman felt as if she was experiencing an illusion. Although she could 
verify the portrayed man’s identity and recognise him, his aged appearance and a sense 
of deception placed the whole matter in a very unfavourable light. Thus, the incongru-
ity between the past and present appearance revealed that the couple had been sepa-
rated not only by a spatial but also temporal distance. 

There is one more aspect that needs to be given attention with reference to the photo-
graph as a means of representation. The picture gives its subjects a sense of eternal 
existence, which creates a timeless space of belonging. Taken out of the time frame-
work, the photographed people seem to linger in an interval between two periods 
of time. Furthermore, Sontag (1973: 11) suggests that every event captured in time is 
instantly rendered immortal: “After the event has ended, the picture will still exist, 
conferring on the event a kind of immortality (and importance) it would never other-
wise have enjoyed. While real people are out there killing themselves or other real 
people, the photographer stays behind his or her camera, creating a tiny element of 
another world: the image-world that bids to outlast us all.” Assuming the air of immor-
tality, the prospective husbands presented themselves in the form of out-dated portraits, 
hoping that time had not worked to their disadvantage. This percept is also intriguing 



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from another vantage point. According to Sontag, “[a] photograph is both a pseudo-pres-
ence and a token of absence” and “[t]he sense of the unattainable that can be evoked by 
photographs” (16) is here of particular significance. The past images of the prospective 
grooms turn into pseudo-present points of reference, since their existence did not find 
a truthful reflection in reality. Thus, they became tokens of absence due to the fact that 
they lost touch with the present and could not be anchored in actuality.

During her journey to the United States, Hana is overcome with excitement and 
apprehensive thoughts at the same time. Now her economic future is going to be totally 
dependent on her husband’s income, since—as she hopes—only he will be the main 
provider of the family: “Hana wondered about the flat above the shop. Perhaps it would 
be luxuriously furnished with the finest of brocades and lacquers, and perhaps there 
would be a servant, although he had not mentioned it. She worried whether she would 
be able to manage on the meagre English she had learned at Women’s High School. The 
overwhelming anxiety for the day to come and the violent rolling of the ship were more 
than Hana could bear” (Uchida 1997: 5). As it transpires, the path to her dream life is 
paved with more obstacles than she could think of. Before entering San Francisco, not 
only is she enclosed indoors and questioned for two days, but also undergoes rigorous 
medical tests to qualify for permission to enter the mainland:

When she set foot on American soil at last, it was not in the city of San Francisco as 
she had expected, but on Angel Island, where all third-class passengers were taken. 
She spent two miserable days and nights waiting as the immigrants were questioned by 
officials, examined for trachoma and tuberculosis and tested for hookworm by a woman 
who collected their stools on tin pie plates. Hana was relieved she could produce her own, 
not having to borrow a little from someone else, as some of the women had to do. It was 
a bewildering, degrading beginning, and Hana was sick with anxiety, wondering if she 
would ever be released. (6)

Finally, she is able to depart and look for her future spouse. Exhausted and with 
growing fearful anticipation, she is repeatedly overcome with more and more appre-
hension: “The early morning mist had become a light chilling rain … making the task of 
recognition even harder. Hana searched desperately for a face that resembled the photo 
she had studied so long and hard. Suppose he hadn’t come. What would she do then?” 
(6). The scene that follows is a common one among many picture brides who encoun-
tered their picture grooms for the first time. Hana, staggered by the fact that Taro’s 
appearance is far from his actual looks, seems overtly disillusioned. This is the next 
hindrance she must face and—most of all— accept if she wants to spend the rest of her 
life with the gentleman in front of her: “Hana caught her breath. ‘You are Takeda San?’ 
she asked. He removed his hat and Hana was further startled to see that he was already 



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turning bald. ‘You are Takeda San?’ she asked again. He looked older than thirty-one. 
‘I am afraid I no longer resemble the early photo my parents gave you. I am sorry’” (7). 
The moment appears to be awkward for both of them. It seems as if the photograph of 
the groom-to-be has not fulfilled its task and its apparent objectivity in rendering some-
one’s image flawlessly is irrevocably distorted by time, since the photograph she has 
been given speaks for the past, not the present. The capability of constructing memory 
by photography exposes limits of photographic authenticity. The identity of Taro is 
lost in the past and that is why it is almost impossible to be deciphered from the photo-
graph. Hana, taken back in time with the outdated image of the man, learns that this 
is a false representation of her future spouse. Hence, his photo-image triggers a sense 
of betrayal of the fundamental principles of honesty and trust. Squeezed between two 
images, she hardly manages to come to terms with this ‘misrepresentation,’ which is 
instantly noticeable for Taro: “ ‘Mr. and Mrs. Toda are expecting you in Oakland. You 
will be staying with them until …’ He couldn’t bring himself to mention the marriage 
just yet and Hana was grateful he hadn’t” (7). Although she is familiar with the fact that 
the Japanese men who want to attract young women to become their wives often resort 
to ‘ambiguous’ measures of persuasion, she did not expect on her arrival that the whole 
matter would be so far from the truth. Kiku, who becomes her lifelong friend through 
good and bad times, reveals much more disappointing circumstances: 

Hana’s anxieties still haunted her, bringing back her own first days in America. She knew 
what it was to travel so far to marry a strange man. She knew too that, more often than 
not, the first meeting was a disappointment rather than a hope fulfilled, for no man was 
so foolish as to tell the whole truth about himself before marriage. He sent only the best 
photograph of himself, and a rosy view of the future based more on hope than on actual 
fact. Kiku knew more than one woman who had been led to believe her life in America 
would be one of comfort and prosperity. But often the landowner she had come expecting 
to marry turned out to be a poor dirt farmer who leased his land, and the car beside 
which he had posed for his photograph belonged not to him, but to his boss. The first 
months for many Japanese women were a cruel and bitter disappointment. (21-22)

Hope turned into mirage for a significant number of picture brides who experi-
enced the first pang of regret after disembarking the ship. Kessler (1994: 43) points out 
that frequently they “were so distraught at seeing their new spouses—many of whom 
were twenty or more years older than the photographs they had sent to Japan—that 
they pleaded (unsuccessfully) to be let back on the ship and returned home.” However, 
for the majority of the women, it was a one-way journey and the previously acquired 
consent to marriage simultaneously acted as a disclaimer. Finding a common ground 
between the couple was often marred by a lack of mutual understanding, since forging 



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a relationship of trust, after having been deceived from the very beginning, verged on 
the impossible. For that reason, as Kessler emphasises, “[t]he relationships that grew 
from these blind unions between young girls, who felt they had been tricked, and 
desperate middle-aged men, who lied about themselves and their prospects to attract a 
mate, were often uneasy, unhappy ones” (43). Although it used to be a common pattern 
of relationship that was cultivated in the aftermath, there occurred some more optimis-
tic instances which did not support such a generalisation. Ghymn (1995: 76) notes that 
not all the married couples were doomed to a hopeless and grim future: “Love was not 
always a part of the bargain. In fact, it was often the exception. … This is not to say that 
all marriages were miserable, but to point out that love in these marriages was not a 
given but a luxury.”

It seems that Hana has never been granted such a luxury, as she has to face the subse-
quent obstacles that come pouring into her life in significant numbers. The image of an 
omnipresent freedom and an idealistic life visualised by the woman becomes tarnished 
again when she finds out that her dream of being maintained and provided for only 
by her husband is another misconception. When it clashes with the reality, she has to 
construct her vision of the future from scratch:

Until that moment it had never occurred to Hana that she might go to work when she 
came to America. She intended, of course, to help Taro at his shop occasionally, but as 
the wife of the proprietor, she pictured herself sitting at the back of the shop knitting or 
crocheting in a comfortable chair. She had never once thought that she would go to the 
home of a white woman and do her housework for her. Taro was supposed to be a successful 
shopkeeper, and she had come to America to be a lady, not a servant. (Uchida 1997: 10)

The fact that Asian immigrants had to work hard and for minimum wages to maintain 
their families was a novelty to Hana. This was another disillusionment to be digested in 
a short space of time. The prosperity of the family often depended on frugality and a 
sparing use of resources. According to Spickard (2009: 39), “[t]he couples had to establish 
a common bond of duty, love, or resignation very quickly, for pressures were intense 
and resources were few. In America, as in Japan, the Issei had to work very hard to make 
even a meagre living. Women found themselves working for wages outside the home 
or working alongside their husbands on farms or in businesses.” When Hana realises 
this, she knows that assistance with running Taro’s store will become her duty as well.

 Hana has been haunted by doubts about her future since the beginning of her stay 
in an alien land. She is overcome with reservations and filled with inner regret: “but 
suppose all was not as it had seemed. What could she do then? She had no money with 
which to return to Japan, and besides, she had promised to become Taro’s wife” (Uchida 
1997: 10). Quickly enough does she understand that any uniting bond will not be one 



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of love. Being torn apart between the past and the present becomes a torment she is 
hardly able to sustain:

A mass of troubled thoughts tumbled about in her head as she prepared for bed. Perhaps 
she had made a terrible mistake in coming to America. In her anxiety to escape the 
drabness of Oka Village, perhaps she had leaped too far and severed too many roots. Now, 
like a tree transported beyond its native soil, she must grope for life and sustenance in an 
alien land, to be cherished by a stranger whose love she feared and whose life must, in 
the end, become her own. (26)

The story gets more complex when Hana falls in love with Taro’s best friend, Kiyoshi 
Yamaka. Even though she is not married yet, she is not capable of claiming her own 
right to love and resists her feelings for Kiyoshi. Requited love is harder to abandon as 
they both realise that it feels as if they have known each other forever. The sole prelimi-
nary marriage agreement makes Hana keep her promise irrevocable. She would rather 
fall into an unhappy and loveless marriage than lose her face and dignity by break-
ing her word. She seems disposed to bleed for the rest of her life rather than hurt Taro 
and make him suffer instead. Moreover, any rash action would also influence their 
families in Japan, and that was too heavy a burden to be carried on woman’s shoulders. 
The predicament appears to be unsolvable, as—according to her reasoning—no matter 
which direction she chooses, each solution will have dire consequences. Hence, Hana’s 
pondering whether she could withdraw herself before the wedding ceremony does not 
bring any sound resolution and she still lingers at the same starting point:

She must give herself more time before making judgements, but she couldn’t help 
wondering if she could face the life that seemed to lie ahead. Yet what were the alternatives? 
She could beg Taro’s forgiveness and break her engagement to him. She could wait a 
decent interval and perhaps marry someone else. Hana didn’t dare let herself think who 
that might be. It was clearly impossible to renege on her promise, not only for Taro’s sake, 
but for her uncle’s. He would suffer a complete loss of face after having worked so hard to 
convince Taro’s parents that she would be a good wife. (25)  

Hana’s final decision to be faithful to her future husband stems from her cultural 
background and is a direct fruit of a Japanese upbringing. Her personal sacrifice seems 
to be natural, since she could not think of any other conceivable twist of events on 
her part. Female servitude to men does not seem to play a more significant role than 
adherence to traditional Japanese values, which are the cornerstone of every social 
relationship in Japan. Stan Yogi (1997:132) distinguishes a few “overarching values 
among Japanese Americans: sensitivity and obligation. These values are seen in various 



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cultural phenomena such as giri (indebtedness), on (obligation), and enryo (reserve, 
constraint), which are based in empathy and interdependence.” The aforementioned 
set of values passed on to offspring for centuries constitutes the rudiments of Japanese 
spiritual wisdom and is the major point of reference for the subsequent generations. 
An attitude of obligation which requires loyalty and obedience makes Hana stick firmly 
to her decision. Within the scope of indebtedness, she is also bound by a number of 
incurred obligations, which—for a person unfamiliar with Japanese culture—might 
seem quite incomprehensible. As Kessler (1994: ix) remarks, “[i]n Japan you are born 
owing ancestral debts that can never be repaid, and as you make your way in the 
world you accumulate new obligations, kindness and favours owed to family, friends, 
colleagues, neighbours, even strangers. This web of obligation connects people in ways 
that both include and transcend kinship and friendship.” The entire way of reasoning is 
deeply rooted in an ancestral tradition since historically it derived from “a culture that 
stressed group identity over individualism, that emphasized, above all else, a sense of 
duty and responsibility to others. … The society was threaded together by osewa (aid, 
help or indebtedness), a meshwork that connected people to one another across fami-
lies and across generations. That is how Japan functioned” (54). From this vantage point, 
Hana’s mindset is completely compatible with the expectations of her Japanese commu-
nity in her native land, and she does not seem willing to challenge the contemporary 
social construct, regardless of her personal inclinations towards individuality.

Before the wedding ceremony, hope blends with anxiety as the couple prepares to 
embark on their lifelong journey. Standing in front of the altar before taking vows, each 
of them realises how difficult it will be to make a successful living, not only in emotion-
al but also economic terms: 

Now here was Hana, who also had sailed far from home, trusting and full of hope, to 
become his wife. She was like a child coming to be led by a blind man. He felt anxious 
and fearful for them both, but was determined not to disappoint Hana. He would work 
hard and try to give her a good life. Perhaps one day they would have a family, and he 
would have enough money to rent a house on a proper street. He would see to it that Hana 
never regretted coming to America. He owed her at least that much. (Uchida 1997: 28)

Hana’s thrust into Taro’s arms in a childlike manner is not indicative of an infantile 
attitude but represents a token of total confidence that a wife should evince towards 
her husband. Ghymn (1995: 87) argues that “[b]eing childlike doesn’t imply stupidity; 
rather it represents the feminine way of behaving for Japanese women. This master/
servant relationship for husband and wife has always been the custom in Japan. The 
traditional wife usually obeys the husband in all matters.” Again, the Japanese way of 
thinking shapes their mutual attitudes towards the future, which finds its reflection in 



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female obedience and male primacy. Transferring the Japanese cultural matrix onto 
the American soil is supposed to provide them a stable and, hopefully, prosperous living. 
According to Ghymn, only such an arrangement was regarded to be a preliminary step 
to fulfilment for the issei: “A woman’s loyalty to her husband has been considered one 
of her highest virtues. … Raised on Confucian standards of patience and endurance, the 
first-generation women were not ill-equipped to face the harsh realities of early twen-
tieth-century America. Persevering, determined to succeed, trained in discipline, the 
early wives started new communities” (76-77). After all, these were the virtues which for 
many Japanese women made it possible to withstand and resist the biting winds of an 
uncertain future. 

One of the major obstacles to overcome for the newcomers was racial and ethnic 
discrimination. Hana soon finds out from Kiku that no matter how hard they try, the 
Japanese will always be placed at the lowest rung of the social ladder, as they are 
offered only menial jobs and do not have any prospects for improving their position in 
American society. Such a rejection engenders numerous reverberations which adversely 
affect their everyday lives:

She turned Hana’s face toward her and said gravely, ‘You are going to have to realize 
something important, Hana. We are foreigners in this country, and there are many white 
people who resent our presence here. They welcome us only as cooks or houseboys or 
maids. Why, even if Taro’s store was twice as big and it was on the best corner in downtown 
Oakland, still his only customers would be the Japanese and the men on Seventh Street. 
Don’t forget, we are aliens here. We don’t really belong. (Uchida 1997: 25)

Their plight made them one of the most vulnerable members of American society. 
Despite their constant struggles to maintain their interests and identity, the Japanese or 
other Asians, and later, Asian Americans, were prevented from speaking in their own 
voice. In consequence, as David Leiwei Li (1998: 24) underlines, all Asian Americans 
at the time were resigned to accepting their desperate predicament: “Since histori-
cally Asian Americans were denied access to the political and cultural production of 
the nation, and heavily restricted in finding alternative means of propagating ethnic 
consciousness, they were forced in to a sorry state of dependency on the dominant defi-
nition of themselves.” Due to their oriental origin and exotic looks, Asian Americans 
were deprived of equal rights for citizenship—freely granted to Europeans—which 
rendered them social outcasts regardless of their assets. American history was caught 
in a vicious circle, which proved that, irrespective of an American past tarnished with 
slavery, skin colour still mattered. As Kessler (1994: 19-20) argues, a set of external 
features was the only factor that made Asians distinguishable from a white society. All 
other outstanding markers, such as language or customs, were malleable to change. 



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Thus, their distinctive Asian appearance became an indelible mark of their identity, 
which—in the society that despised dissimilarity—turned into a lifelong burden and 
stigma that condemned them to a deep-rooted sense of inferiority:

Welcomed by the Statue of Liberty, the Europeans could shed the ways of the Old World. 
They could change their speech, their customs, their citizenship, even their names. 
In time, they could be, if they wanted to be—as so many first-generation immigrants 
did—indistinguishable from others who had been in the country for generations. But 
the Statue of Liberty showed her back to the Orient, and this was more than a symbolic 
gesture of exclusion. Although arrivals from Asia were sometimes welcomed as cheap 
labor, regardless of how long they lived in America and how Westernized they became, 
their faces would forever mark them as foreigners.

Speaking in photographic terms, their origin thrust Asians out of focus, which exclud-
ed them entirely from the American national scrapbook and rendered them invisible 
for the rest of American society. Because of their disparity, they were out of frame, 
which rendered them invisible for the rest of American society. Always in the margin 
and at the bottom of society, the immigrants were prevented from prospective devel-
opment. All these determinants contributed to a growing sense of frustration, which 
has bred a desperate need for a change lasting to the present day, however in altered 
and less conspicuous circumstances. Sau-ling Cynthia Wong (1993: 91) voices concern 
that “Asian Americans are forever marked by some untransformable alien element. 
Thus an identity that has been formed like a chemical compound, in that complex, irre-
versible process called living, is forcibly broken apart, treated as if it were a physical 
mixture with readily sorted-out ingredients.” Torn between an oriental and occidental 
world, Asian-American identities have transformed into hybrids in a constant struggle, 
unable to determine whether the Asian or American part of themselves is prevalent. 

The Japanese immigrants at the beginning of the twentieth century were inclined to 
enter the flow of the American cultural mainstream as soon as possible. A number of 
the issei Japanese tried to blend in and emulate Americans in every possible way, which 
reflected their immediate urgency for assimilation. They comprehended that this was 
the only reasonable way to make them succeed in a new world. What is more, conform-
ing to American rules often did not seem to bring much difficulty for the newcomers. 
Although they knew that they would never be treated on a par with European immi-
grants, the Japanese strove to achieve at least the appearance of conformity. According 
to Kim (1982: 125), changing the way of life was not an overrated price for the reward of 
being accepted as equals, which—after all—did not happen at all:

One of the attitudes that set early Japanese immigrants apart from the Chinese was their 



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active interest in adopting the clothing, mannerisms, and customs of Anglo-Americans. 
The early Chinese, required under penalty of death to maintain their queues as signs of 
their obeisance to Manchu rule and concerned with eventual return to their villages in 
China, did not generally adopt Western-style clothing. The Japanese, on the other hand, 
had their hair cut in modern European styles and attempted to dress like Americans as 
much as possible. Japanese picture brides told of being whisked from the ships by their 
new husbands directly to the dressmaker’s, where they would be outfitted in Western 
clothing, including hats, corsets, high-necked ruffled blouses, long skirts with bustles, 
high-laced shoes, and, for the first time in their lives, brassieres and hip pads. Some 
Japanese immigrants converted to Christianity and tried to learn English.

The aforementioned practices are also vividly depicted in Uchida’s novel. Hana, after 
disembarking the ship, starts to feel the first pangs of acute reality. While travelling 
with Taro by street car, she becomes “more and more aware of her conspicuous Japanese 
clothing” (Uchida 1997: 8), which makes her vulnerable to the transfixing stares of the 
people around: “‘My clothes are not right,’ she murmured, tucking her feet with their 
white tabi and zori as far beneath the bench as she could. She held her furoshiki bundle 
close to her chest, but there was no hiding it or her clothes, and the curious stares of 
the people who sat opposite her were cold and unfriendly. ‘I feel very much out of place,’ 
she whispered” (8). Taro’s reaction was swift and comforting, he “nodded and under-
stood. ‘Mrs. Toda will help you get some American clothing,’ he assured her.” As far as 
Christian faith is concerned, Taro has already converted to Christianity and expects 
Hana to take the same measure. What is more, his idea of the wedding ceremony is 
also accomplished and ready to be realised, without a need to consult the future wife: 

“Taro had said he wanted to have a fine, American-style Christian wedding. He wanted 
none of the stiff formality of a Japanese wedding with a doll-like bride, bewigged and so 
heavily encrusted with powder that the groom scarcely recognized her. Nor did he want 
any of the ritual of the Shinto ceremony” (22). His instructions do not leave any free 
space for creativity even in terms of the bride’s clothing: “ ‘I want Hana to wear a long 
white dress with a veil and carry a proper bouquet,’ he instructed. ‘I expect she will need 
white shoes too, and all the things that go beneath the dress’ ” (22). After a short period 
of time, Hana is baptized as a Christian, also at Taro’s request. It is worth mention-
ing that her conversion is not the result of her personal beliefs. In fact, it is made in 
compliance with her husband’s will, for the sake of marital obedience on the female 
part: “Hana agreed mainly because she felt it her duty to do so” (64). Indeed, a strong 
sense of isolation felt by the issei generated an overwhelming social pressure within the 
community, which could be eased by adopting the same cultural customs or religious 
practices as those of the white community. As Kessler (1994: 18) points out, according 
to some issei—adopting such measures shrank the distance between the two nations: 



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“While the vast majority of issei laborers kept the faith of their homeland, a number of 
the most successful Japanese immigrants were leaving Buddhism behind. Their accep-
tance of a Western faith seemed to make them more ‘palatable,’ or at least somewhat 
more comprehensible, to white society. It took the edge of their foreignness and gave 
them something in common with the dominant society in which they had to function.” 
As a matter of fact, the nisei—constituting the second generation of the Japanese immi-
grants—were characterised by a much stronger inclination towards American culture, 
its language and customs. The process of identification with the United States occurred 
naturally, since it was their birthplace and a surrounding cultural background. When 
her daughter reaches the age of a prospective bride, Hana realises that she no longer 
belongs to Japanese culture. The only child of the Takedas, Mary Yukari, whose double 
name of American and Japanese origin also indicates a double identity, testifies to the 
fact that her mental attitude is completely disparate from her parents’ expectations and 
she no longer resembles an image of a Japanese subservient female:

She looked at her daughter and wondered what would happen if they went back to Japan 
now. Would it be too late to make a Japanese woman of Mary? She pictured her kneeling 
gracefully in a silk kimono, preparing ceremonial tea or arranging flowers. She saw 
her dressed in the finery of a Japanese bride, her face made up with thick white paste. 
But even in her imagining, Mary slithered quickly out of the stiff strictures of Japanese 
clothing, and Hana knew that her daughter was already too free and self-willed to become 
a submissive Japanese wife. She already possessed the same independent spirit that had 
caused Hana herself to leave her home so many years ago. (Uchida 1997: 128)

Undoubtedly, the Japanese set of values based on mental stamina and sacrifice has 
helped Hana survive the most arduous hardships of her life. Even her stay at two intern-
ment camps during World War II, first at the Tanforan Assembly Center in California 
and then at the Topaz Relocation Center in Utah, and the death of Taro, accidentally 
shot by a guard on the camp premises, do not scar her endurance and a strong will to 
prevail. Uchida, through the words of Reverend Nishima, reaffirms that the two former 
picture brides, Hana and Kiku, despite their advanced age, still possess the same energy 
and forcefulness that enabled them to travel to an unknown country a few decades 
earlier: “They’re strong, … both of them. They each crossed an ocean alone to come to 
this country, and they are going to survive the future with the same strength and spirit” 
(216). After 1924, the arrival of picture brides into the United States was eventually 
halted. Even then the harshest restrictions turned out to be targeted at the immigrants 
of Asian origin, who were still refused to be granted the right for citizenship. Kessler 
(1994: 78-79) remarks that the annual quotas for immigrants from European countries 



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were in stark contrast to the ones provided for the Japanese, which resulted in a signifi-
cant decline of immigration from the Asian continent:  

In 1924 Congress passed an immigration quota bill, the National Origins Act, the purpose 
of which was to restrict immigrants from ‘undesirable’ areas while encouraging ‘good’ 
immigrants. The bill set annual quotas from various countries. From Ireland (in ‘good’ 
northwestern Europe), 17, 853 immigrants would be allowed; but from Poland (in less 
desirable eastern Europe), the limit was 6,524. The annual allowable quota from Japan: 0. 
Wives of Japanese citizens already in America were no longer permitted to enter (as they 
had been through a ‘loophole’ in the 1907 Gentlemen’s Agreement). Even U.S. citizens 
could not bring into the country their Asian spouses, who were classified as ‘aliens 
ineligible for citizenship.’ 

The picture bride arrangement has been amply explored in Asian American litera-
ture. It constitutes a significant and recurrent theme of Asian American prose and 
poetry. Uchida’s novel which has been chosen to portray the character and specificity 
of this phenomenon, was followed by a number of other works. Over the subsequent 
decades, it has received much publicity and engendered numerous publications—to 
name just a few: Passage of a Picture Bride (1990) by Won Kil Yoon, Picture Brides: Japanese 
Women in Canada (1995) by Tomoko Makabe, Korean Picture Brides (2002) by Sonia Shinn 
Sunoo, Picture Bride (2014) by C. Fong Hsiung, Picture Bride (2016) by Mike Malaghan and 
Picture Bride Stories (2016) by Barbara F. Kawakami—which present the life stories of the 
Asian picture brides of various descent who at the turn of the twentieth century arrive 
in the United States or Canada to challenge their poignant destiny. In their works, the 
authors strike a similar chord of disillusionment with the depictions of numerous hard-
ships awaiting the newly arrived females. More importantly, they unveil the innermost 
feelings of the Asian women who, after confronting the harsh reality of their new lives, 
are able to endure and prevail despite adverse circumstances.

The aforementioned subject matter is also present in Asian-American novels which do 
not deal with the picture bride system predominantly but interweave it into Japanese-
American discourse about the history of the Japanese in America. Thus, one cannot get 
rid of the impression that this practice constitutes an indispensable and inseparable 
part of the Japanese cultural heritage. Among the novels reflecting the experiences of 
the contemporary Japanese picture brides, The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka draws 
immediate attention with its specific depiction of the inherent feelings and attitudes of 
the Japanese females. Assuming a plural voice (plural in its form and unity—instead of an 
individual ‘I’), the women speak unanimously about the difficulties they have been suffer-
ing, which—with an array of emotive references—makes their emotional vocalisation 



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even more impactful and reverberating. Their journey from Japan starts with the 
moments of apprehension and uncertainty interspersed with occasional rays of hope:

What would become of us, we wondered, in such an alien land? … Would we be laughed 
at? Spat on? Or, worse yet, would we not be taken seriously at all? But even the most 
reluctant of us had to admit that it was better to marry a stranger in America than grow 
old with a farmer from the village. Because in America the women did not have to work 
in the fields and there was plenty of rice and firewood for all. And wherever you went the 
men held open the doors and tipped their hats and called out, “Ladies first” and “After 
you.” (Otsuka 2011:7)

The vision of abundance in every respect, as opposed to the poverty-stricken regions 
of Japan, and noticeably different male attitudes towards women provoke widespread 
interest among the young Japanese females. However, already on their arrival, the 
picture brides are stricken with an increasing number of disappointing events, which 
eventually makes them sink into despair, since all they encounter seems to surpass their 
intellective and emotional capacity. The outdated photographs and letters, the latter of 
which actually do not reflect the personalities of their husbands, due to the fact that 
they have been written by skilful matchmakers, place the women in front of complete 
strangers and trigger the first wave of disillusionment in the new land:

On the boat we could not have known that when we first saw our husbands we would 
have no idea who they were. That the crowd of men in knit caps and shabby black coats 
waiting for us down below on the dock would bear no resemblance to the handsome 
young men in the photographs. That the photographs we had been sent were twenty 
years old. That the letters we had been written had been written to us by people other 
than our husbands, professional people with beautiful handwriting whose job it was to 
tell lies and win hearts. (18)

Otsuka’s novel discloses more details about the factual state of matters when the 
Japanese wives are faced with the necessity to work, as the level of potential affluence 
of their husbands often transpires to be so low that they are on the verge of destitu-
tion. What is more, their place of habitation can hardly be called a proper home, which 
makes the couple struggle to earn a living for each day of their existence: “Because if 
our husbands had told us the truth in their letters—they were not silk traders, they were 
fruit pickers, they did not live in large, many-roomed houses, they lived in tents and in 
barns and out of doors, in the fields, beneath the sun and the stars—we never would 
have come to America to do the work that no self-respecting American would do” (28-29). 
Hence, they end up doing the menial housework in American houses, which seems to be 



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the only path to career advancement for Asians: “We never talked back or complained. 
We never asked for a raise. For most of us were simple girls from the country who did 
not speak any English and in America we knew we had no choice but to scrub sinks and 
wash floors” (44). Hard labour in the fields constitutes another way of providing finan-
cial support for the household by the women: “Some of us worked quickly because our 
husbands had warned us that if we did not they would send us home on the very next 
boat. I asked for a wife who was able and strong” (28). Nevertheless, all the hardships that 
the Japanese wives have to endure do not trigger as much resentment as the attitudes of 
their spouses towards them. Their apparent ‘translucence’ is, in fact, a reflection of their 
passivity and social inertness, which incurs their husbands’ ignorance and emotional 
negligence: “Sometimes he looked right through us without seeing us at all, and that 
was always the worst. Does anyone even know I am here?” (30). All in all, the purport of 
the potent plural vocalisation in the novel becomes an anthem of female strength and 
coalescence, which resolves into a persuasive image of human endurance and evidence 
that even Japanese women can speak their own voice.

Among poetic works, Picture Bride (1983) by Cathy Song,2 a poem from a collection 
under the same title, stands out with its sensual sensitivity and attempts to capture this 
phenomenon into empirical parentheses. Song’s grandmother, a Korean picture bride 
herself married to a Chinese labourer, provided first-hand experience and background 
information concerning the practice. The author, projecting herself into her grandmoth-
er’s emotions, employs her curiosity to ask questions about her ancestor’s past ‘predica-
ment.’ Song’s incomprehensibility borders on incredulity, as getting married at the age 
of twenty-three to a complete stranger, thirteen years her senior, seems to be beyond 
her comprehension. As Seiwoong Oh (2007: 243) notes, the corporeal subject matter 
constitutes the focal point of the author’s analysis: “A poet who highly stresses visual 
body imagery in her works, Cathy Song deals with the mapping of identity by explor-
ing the relationship of body to body and presents such imagery explicitly and symboli-
cally.” The most nagging question that lingers in the end refers to the most intimate 
plane of human existence where the author wonders whether her grandmother wilfully 
and immediately engaged not only in an emotional, but also physical relationship with 
her newly-met husband. A matchmaking practice became a custom of the time where 
‘mail order’ brides functioned within the framework of the objectified body and this is 
accentuated at the end of the poem. In the view of Joseph Jonghyun Jeon (2012: 116), the 
grandmother’s image evokes alienation which does not translate into a tangible token of 
representation: 

The final image of the grandmother’s dress billowing in the smoke-filled winds from the 

2 Song, Cathy. 1983. Picture Bride. New Heaven and London: Yale University Press.



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cane fields marks an arrested moment that cannot be completed and doubles the picture 
of her as viewed by the grandfather. In both cases, the relationship to the image is not 
just estranged, it is irreparably so, and the grandmother comes to function not unlike 
the face of the other … but a more abstract representation of alterity in general—not a 
particular other but Otherness writ large. In short, “Picture Bride” bespeaks the limits 
of the picture.

Another poetic work which draws immediate attention with its poignant reference 
to the picture bride system is enclosed within eleven lines of a personal account. The 
poem Daughter (1989) in the collection Air Pocket by Kimiko Hahn,3 an American author 
of Japanese and German descent, refers directly to a generational gap and a problem 
of translational nature between the present and the past. Through the semantic illus-
tration of the picture bride arrangement and the use of ekphrasis in the portrayal of 
still life, the author reflects her incapacity to aptly render the crux of this phenomenon. 
She does not feel competent to translate the events which she has not witnessed herself. 
From the vantage point of a granddaughter, the author is incapable of a flawless and 
truthful representation. According to Traise Yamamoto (1999: 241), “Hahn directly asso-
ciates translation with historicity, exploring the problematics and possibilities of trans-
lation understood as a mode of cultural transmission. The poem implicitly relies on an 
understanding of a specific history to ground its central tension between representation 
and translation.” The generational gap between the grandchild and her grandmother 
obliges them to speak different languages as they have distinct points of reference in 
their lives. This lack of convergence in time creates a possibility of misrepresentation, 
which—as Yamamoto points out—contributes to a failure in a cultural translation of the 
whole concept. Such an attempt is doomed from the start, as—similarly to a still life—it 
does not reflect the complexity of the matter and does not retain its multidimensionality:

Hahn thus calls into question the nature of representation: like the marriage photographs 
that gave no hint of the subject behind the image, a carefully arranged still life is 
flat—a unidimensional rendering of its subject. In both cases, the fixity of the picture 
fails to articulate complexity; its convention of artifice only alludes to representational 
authenticity by assuming a fixed object. In a similar way, translating the grandmother’s 
language to satisfy the expectation of a seamless transmission of culture presupposes 
culture as inert. The translating subject herself then becomes, like a still life, a flat 
representation that elides subjectivity. (242)

3 Hahn, Kimiko. 1989. Air Pocket. Brooklyn: Hanging Loose Press.



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What is more, still life, as its name indicates, is lifeless and devoid of emotional 
content unless it evokes definable emotions in the observer. Thus, the plane of refer-
ence is transferred onto the viewer who reacts to the visual stimuli in an individual way. 
Similarly, an alien world full of antagonistic attitudes towards the Japanese projected 
onto the picture bride a set of adverse emotions which made her feel socially isolated 
and abandoned. As Ghymn (1995: 75) elaborates, this constituted a common course of 
events, since the female was often left to herself and all she experienced was the initial 
thrill of hope which subsequently turned into disillusionment: “The discrimination and 
loneliness that awaited her were not foreseen. The picture bride knew almost nothing of 
the emotional isolation, the racial prejudice, and the harsh realities to come. The brides 
came with a great deal of hope only to be met by disappointment. … There was no turning 
back after they came here, however; they had no choice but to survive and endure.”

A still life can also be viewed from another angle as far as female (non-)responsive-
ness is concerned. The motionless composition it depicts could be translated as female 
powerlessness, her passivity and inability to take action, which was characteristic of the 
picture brides. The Japanese woman, like an inanimate object, accepted a social locus 
to which she was directed by the male. Her place of belonging could only be compatible 
with that of her husband or another male member of the family. And again, accord-
ing to Ghymn’s reasoning, the women’s weak social position triggered severe rever-
berations in their lives: “Social reality has meant for centuries male power and female 
powerlessness. In America these women met discrimination and hardship. … They also 
faced prejudice because all quite often the public thought that all Asian women were 
prostitutes. … Soon, the women usually had big families and nowhere to turn if they 
did not get along with their husbands. Alienation, loneliness, rejection—the picture 
brides were effectively imprisoned” (75-76). Their imprisonment was similar to still life 
objects enclosed within one framework of perception, notably—the one of the painter 
or the photographer. The picture brides, fitted into the frames of personal obedience, 
acquiesced to this imposed passivity. In this case, the role of the imperious demiurge 
belonged to the Japanese male who arranged the further life of his wife according to his 
own perception.

Juxtaposed with the conceptualisation of the “philosopher of the photograph” (Brunet 
2013: 8), Roland Barthes, who delineated a “cultural matrix for which photography 
remained something of a novelty, and an intruder of sorts in the older and more serene 
realm of literature” (8), a conclusion that can be derived from the picture bride phenom-
enon leads to the conjectural overlapping of literature and photography, which reveals 
their significant potentials deeply enmeshed in written and printed culture. Not seldom 
is the former the face of the latter, since each one speaks for the other in an idiosyncrat-
ic language characteristic of its particular nature. Thus, reversing the angle of percep-
tion enables these two means of expression to influence each other in order to obtain a 



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‘bilingual’ plane of communication permeated with a double (but not interchangeable) 
layer of significance, which facilitates adjusting the lens of interpretation. To recapitu-
late, photographic criticism lends to literary criticism a (non-)obvious tinge of significa-
tion as the photograph becomes a stylus with which the author may give a favourable, 
and—most importantly—meaningful, touch to his or her subject matter.

References
Brunet, F. 2013 [2009]. Photography and Literature. London: Reaktion Books.
Burrows, S. 2010. A Familiar Strangeness: American Fiction and the Language Photography, 

1839-1945. Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press.
Cunningham, D., Fisher, A. & Mays, S. 2008. Introduction. In: D. Cunningham, A. Fisher 

and S. Mays (eds.), Photography and Literature in the Twentieth Century, 1-10. Newcastle 
upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 

Ghymn, E. M. 1995. Images of Asian American Women by Asian American Women Writers. 
New York: Peter Lang.  

Jeon, J. J. 2012. Racial Things, Racial Forms: Objecthood in Avant-Garde Asian American 
Poetry. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.

Kessler, L. 1994. Stubborn Twig: Three Generations in the Life of a Japanese American Family. 
New York: Plume. 

Kim, E. H. 1982. Asian American Literature: An Introduction to the Writings and Their Social 
Context. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Li, D. L. 1998. Imagining the Nation: Asian American Literature and Cultural Consent. 
Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.

Meehan, S. R. 2008. Mediating American Autobiography: Photography in Emerson, Thoreau, 
Douglass, and Whitman. Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press. 

Misztal, B. 2003. Theories of Social Remembering. Maidenhead, Philadelphia: Open 
University Press.

Mitchell, W.J.T. 1994. Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation. Chicago 
and London: The University of Chicago Press. 

Oh, S. 2007. Encyclopedia of Asian-American Literature. New York: Facts On File.
Otsuka, J. 2011. The Buddha in the Attic. New York: Anchor Books.
Rugg, L. H. 1997. Picturing Ourselves: Photography and Autobiography. Chicago and 

London: The University of Chicago Press. 
Sontag, S. 1973. On Photography. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Spickard, P. 2009. Japanese Americans: The Formation and Transformations of an Ethnic 

Group. New Jersey: Rudgers University Press.
Taminiaux, P. 2009. The Paradox of Photography. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi.
Uchida, Y. 1997 [1987] Picture Bride. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press.



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Wong, S. C. 1993. Reading Asian American Literature: From Necessity to Extravagance. 
Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Yamamoto, T. 1999. Masking Selves, Making Subjects: Japanese American Women, Identity, 
and the Body. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Yogi, S. 1997. Japanese American Literature. In: K. Cheung (ed.), An Interethnic Companion 
to Asian American Literature, 125-155. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Zia, H. 2001. Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People. New York: 
Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 

* * *
Małgorzata Jarmołowicz-Dziekońska, PhD, is an ESP teacher at the Department of 
Foreign Languages at the Medical University of Bialystok, Poland. Her major fields of 
academic interest comprise ecocriticism, postcolonial and cultural studies with a focus 
on ethnicity and identity formation in the context of immigrant narratives.



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LAURA SAKS1 DOI: 10.15290/CR.2021.33.2.04
University of Warsaw, Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3105-2458

Is translating poems for 
children a child’s play?  
A linguistic analysis of 
the English translations 
of “Lokomotywa” by 
Julian Tuwim
Abstract. The aim of the present article is to demonstrate the challenges connected with the translation 
of children’s poetry, and to offer a qualitative analysis of different translation strategies employed in two 
English translations of the Polish poem for children “Lokomotywa” by Julian Tuwim. The translation 
analysis is based on the translation strategies proposed by Lawrence Venuti and Peter Newmark. It focus-
es on the linguistic and cultural differences between Polish and English, and examines the choices of the 
translation strategies made by the translators, and the impact they may have had on the reception of the 
poem in the target language. The comparison shows that although there may be some limitations in terms 
of the target language and culture, the translators are able to find suitable and effective solutions and 
simultaneously convey the source text’s form and content. The conclusions placed at the end of the paper 
summarise the features of both translations and emphasise those strategies employed by the translators 
which are effective and thanks to which the translations are likely to live up to children’s expectations.

Keywords: poetry translation, translation strategies, translator, poetry, comparative analysis, source 
text, target text.

1 Introduction
Translation of poetry is thought to be one of the most demanding as well as reward-
ing challenges faced by a translator. It seems impossible to convey all elements of the 
form, and every feature of the original, whilst simultaneously adapting the language 
to the target tradition and culture. Translators are often expected to approximate the 
rhythm, syntax, form, and content. According to Newmark (1987: 70), “The translation 

1 Address for correspondence: Faculty of Applied Linguistics, University of Warsaw,  ul. Szturmowa 4, 
02-678 Warsaw, Poland. E-mail: l.saks@student.uw.edu.pl



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of poetry is the field where most emphasis is normally put on the creation of a new inde-
pendent poem, and where literal translation is usually condemned”. Although every 
poem should be treated individually and requires skilfulness as well as creativity on 
the part of translators, there has been an urge to propose strategies which would make 
poetry translation as successful as possible. Furthermore, various approaches to trans-
lation raise translators’ awareness regarding the most common translation problems 
and make the effectiveness of concrete techniques evident. 

The present article offers a linguistic analysis of two English language translations 
of “Lokomotywa” by the Polish poet Julian Tuwim, based on the strategies proposed by 
Lawrence Venuti and Peter Newmark. Both translations constitute an interesting mate-
rial to study since they were published in different centuries. The first presented trans-
lation dates back to 1939 and is ascribed to Bernard Gutteridge and William J. Peace 
(Julian Tuwim most probably was in charge of the rhymes; Tuwim 2013). Marcel Weyland 
is responsible for the most recent translation published in 2013. Seventy-four years 
divides both texts, which seems significant from the linguistic point of view as transla-
tion studies and strategies developed in the second half of the 20th century. Moreover, 
both translations illustrate diverse techniques applied by its authors; which make the 
analysis even more informative. Throughout the study cultural-specific items, rhythm 
and rhymes, literary devices especially onomatopoeia are analysed because they play a 
key role when it comes to the reception of “Lokomotywa”. Furthermore, these elements 
may cause numerous translation difficulties and force translators to find optimal solu-
tions which usually mean sacrificing one aspect for the sake of another.

2 Theoretical  background 

2.1 Translation strategies by Lawrence Venuti
Domesticating and foreignizing – these terms were coined by Lawrence Venuti. 
Nonetheless, the latter is usually ascribed to Friedrich Schleiermacher, the 18th century 
theologian and philosopher. The former concept was already known in ancient Rome 
when “translation was a form of conquest” and Latin poets translated Greek texts “into 
the Roman present: they had no time for all those very personal things and names” 
(Nietzsche 1974: 137). Domesticating strategies have found their advocates among 
English and French translators especially since the 15th century. Such conformity to 
cultural aspects present in the target language was particularly visible during the Early 
modern period. Domesticating is meant as adherence to literary standards, as well as 
contemporary situations both cultural and political. This strategy considerably contrib-
uted to the enormous success of some translations, which have become even better 
known than the originals (Baker 1998: 324). 


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	Is translating poems for children a child’s play? 
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