Korean Picture Brides

The Legacy of Korean Picture Brides is a collection of twenty-eight (28) oral history interviews conducted by Sonia Shinn Sunoo during the 1970s. A companion volume to her first volume of oral histories Korea Kaleidoscope this collection focuses on the trials and experiences of the first generation of Korean immigrant women in America. A particular focus was to capture the first-hand story of picture brides. These women were so ready to escape the constricted Confucian society of early twentieth century Korea--and the tightening Japanese rule over their homeland--that they were willing to hand their fates over to marriage brokers seeking to find wives for Korean men who had left for Hawaii and the American mainland