Tensas gazette. [volume] (St. Joseph, La.) 1886-current, 1916-12-08
MANY JAPANESE
PICTURE Brides
OUT ON COAST
Hundreds Arrive Every Year to
Meet Husbands Welded at
Long Distance.
IDENTIFIED BY PHOTOGRAPHS
IL the Bride Doesn't Like His Looks
She Is Apt to Take Next Ship
Back to Mother-Many Inter-
esting Mistakes Made.

steamships arrive at San Francisco.
Seattle or Tacoma it is usual sight
that group of japanese women,
dressed in the japanese costumes, who
have just arrived at the American port,
are leaning on the railing of. the boat
and eagerly searching for someone on
the pier below. To those who do not
ing eyes of those japanese women it
seems that they are only looking for
their friends, but it may surprise many
when they are told that those Japa-
1ese women are looking for their hus-
bands, on whom they have never set
their eyes, writes Mock Joya, in the
New York World.
They are called picture BRIDES
brides who knew their husbands only
In their photographs. A careful OBJ
server will notice that these women
On board the ship are constantly look
ing into something they hold in their
hands as their eyes search for the
expected friends. What they hold in
their hands are the photographs of
their husbands to whom they were
married for several months, but whom
they have never met in person. They
are trying to locate their husbands,
and are comparing the photographs
they firmly hold in their hands with
the faces of the men on the pier.
Married at Long Distance.
Those japanese women are married
TO the japanese on the Pacific coast,
and as it is impossible for any wOm-
en- to come over to the United States
before they are married they are le
gally married to their husbands In,
FOR instance, California, before they
leave Japan. AS the wives of the
Japanese living in California they
could enter the United States.
The coming of the picture brides
has been criticized by the American
press, but the true circumstances of
those women would justify their
coming to the United States. They
are legally married to their husbands
by the sanction of the parents of
both their husbands and themselves.
And the only thing that makes them
strange is the fact that they have
never set their eyes ON their hus-
bands. Not having seen their hus-
bands, many interesting mistakes
are made at their arriving ports.
Upon their arrival at an Ameri-
can port they are taken to the i'm
migration station, where they are
thoroughly examined by the immi-
grafton inspectors Of the United
States. and in the office Of the immi-
grafton officers they are brought be-
fore their husbands for the first
time In their lives. Many a time
woman was introduced to a man by
the immigration officer, and only
after a part of the proceeding was
over was the mistake of giving
wrong wife to a wrong husband dis
from the fact of many women as
well as men having the very same
name or similar names.
Take Religious Ceremony.
When they are passed by the i'm
migration officer the women are per-
mitted to land with their husbands,
and they all proceed to the office Of
the local japanese association. where
they are made men and wives with
q religious ceremony. They could
choose between the Christian and
Buddhist ceremonies. When a large
number 6 the picture brides arrive
on the same boat the wholesale we'd
ding ceremony is held, and at one
ceremony more than twenty couples
are married.
The first picture bride in history
was one Mrs. Tomikawa, who arrived
In San Francisco in 1904. and she was
soon followed by Mrs. X. Ishimaru.
But at that time picture brides were
very scarce, and 1T was in 1906 that
n number of the picture brides be-
gan to arrive at the American ports
on the Pacific coast.
Up to the present almost eight
thousand picture brides entered the
port of San Francisco, and, adding
those that came in other ports, their
total number will exceed 1900.
At San Francisco almost eight hun
bred brides arrive from Japan every
year, and in 1912 the number was $40,
the largest in the history Of picture
brides. The average number of the
picture brides entering San Francisco
for the past five years is about seven
hundred and fifty.
Pictures Are Exchanged.
AS the total number Of the Japa-
nese women in California at the end
Of 1915 was 1882. the majority of the
Japanese women in that state came
there as picture brides, and among
1862 women In California only 252
are single. These picture brides are
the mothers of the most Of the over
nine thousand American-born babies