Tamaki, the daughter of a picture bride, went to Japan at the age of 3 to live with her obachan ( grandmother ). She had been enticed by descriptions of this country as a bountiful place, only to find herself living the strenuous life of a field laborer and kitchen hand. Kusumoto came here by her own choice to marry-only to discover a man, 11 years her senior, who looked nothing like his picture.īlaming herself, Kusumoto proclaims herself warui ( bad ) for wanting to come to America.

She wanted to return to her native Japan, but never considered defying her parents. When asked to remember the hardest part about leaving her family to come to America about 75 years ago as the bride of a man she knew only by photograph, Akagi says in broken but emphatic English, Everything taihen (a Japanese word that means terrible and innumerable.). The picture bride movement, which allowed men to marry by proxy, became the only way members of the predominantly male Japanese population in the United States could find wives and start families.Īccording to some historians, the majority of Japanese born in the United States can trace their ancestry to a picture bride. The picture bride era came at a time of growing anti-Japanese sentiment and restrictions on Japanese immigration. Theater on Sunset Boulevard, the films director, Kayo Hatta, said the trio is among only a handful of picture brides remaining. The film is now showing at the Samuel Goldwyn Pavilion and the Beverly Center Cineplex Odeon. Last week, they appeared as special guests at the premiere of Picture Bride, a fictional story of a young Japanese picture bride in Hawaii. He treated her terribly, she says, but they were married 50 years.

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