Picture Bride

The film Picture Bride demonstrates the difficulty of this type of marriage arrangement. Riyo is shocked when she arrives in Hawaii to marry a man who is twice the age of his photograph. Riyo is visibly disappointed with her new life in Hawaii. The women were often saddened by their less than luxurious homes. The plantation women were worked very hard and paid less than the men. In the movie, Riyo is upset by how little money she had earned based off of how much work she did. The movie shows how hard it was for some of the brides to adjust to plantation life; Like Riyo, they expect to arrive to a Hawaiian paradise and this is often not the case. The plantation experience can be related to a poem from Takaki: “Vexed beyond my strength, I wept. And then the wind came Drying up all my tears” (Takaki 191). This poem was written by a woman on the plantation and in my opinion demonstrate the hardships some of these women faced while adjusting to and living on the plantation.

            One thing I noticed in the movie is that no one, really respected the “haole” plantation boss. There was a scene in the movie where he gave the workers instructions but they did not understand him. They ended up mocking his accent and questioned if he even knew how to speak English. I was pretty interested in seeing some accent discrimination from the workers to the employers. I think this just shows how little “haoles” worked on the plantations compared to Asian workers.

            While Picture Bride is a movie about the Japanese growth in Hawaii, some of the themes are comparable to the experiences of other immigrants, such as the Chinese. In the movie Eat a Bowl of Tea, we saw just how little women were in America at the time. In the movie Picture Brides, we do see more women but there are still many men without wives. The movie shows how expensive it is to bring a bride to Hawaii. While the Japanese were allowed to bring their wives to America, the expenses made it difficult. We saw this when Riyo tries to save money to return to japan but is finds out how difficult it really is.