Masters Thesis

Beyond a single story: complicating histories of picture brides in Asian American literature

From the late 19th to early 20th centuries, young women from East Asian countries such as Korea, Japan, and Okinawa came to Hawaii and the Pacific Coast of the United States as picture brides. Though they dreamed of better lives in a new country, most of them faced extreme hardships due to racial discrimination, poverty, domestic violence, and patriarchal oppression following their immigration. Their distinctive historical narrative has been explored in different art forms such as poetry, historical fiction, and film. In my research, I will explore how fiction and poetry by Julie Otsuka and Cathy Song encourage an understanding of picture brides' stories that challenges a single story of survival. I will show how their works differ from other writers who only portray picture brides as an object of sacrifice and who focus on these women's roles as mother and wife, or as a victim of patriarchy who is saved by white men. I demonstrate how Otuska's novel The Buddha in the Attic, and Song's poetry collection Picture Bride, helps audiences to understand a more complex narrative of picture brides in regard to their ethnic identity and sexuality. As a scholar at the nation's only College of Ethnic Studies, I have an interest in advocating for the voice of Asian American foremothers who existed not just as a sacrificing wife and mother, but also as resilient, contradictory and vulnerable subjects

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