Sonia Gomez Humanities
The Loneliest Brides in America: Japanese War Brides and African American Servicemen After WWII
Immediately following the end of World War II, the United States stationed nearly 450,000 troops in Japan. The U.S. occupation of Japan led to intimate relationships between American Servicemen and Japanese women, resulting in a large number of marriages. Between 1947 and 1975, an estimated 45,000 Japanese women immigrated to the United States as wives of U.S. Servicemen. Most scholarship on the subject focuses on the relationships between Japanese war brides and White American GIs. However, a significant number of these Japanese women came to the United States with their African American husbands; yet their stories remain largely untold. Through extensive archival research and oral histories, Sonia will re-examine gender and race relations in the post-war United States through the lens of the Japanese war bride and African-American GI.
