Join Education Director Aimee Bachari for a two-part discussion on Japanese immigration to Hawai’i by steamship and the practice of picture brides with University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Professor of History and Ethnic Studies Dr. Kelli Nakamura. In Part I, you’ll learn about how the American Civil War and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 fueled a need for sugar plantation workers in Hawai’i. You will also hear about the practice of picture brides, or arranged marriages where partners were selected by photos and personal recommendations of friends and family. In Part II of this interview, they discuss women’s work, domestic violence, WWII and internment, and citizenship issues.
Using exclusive oral histories and primary resources straight from our extensive archives, we focus on the vessels, crew, and passengers that revolutionized the way that we traveled, traded, and immigrated. Steam ahead with us as we navigate the waters of America’s rich maritime heritage.
This program is generously funded by Ted Scull who also helps source interviews, research, and provides visual materials.You can view films, podcasts, primary sources, and accompanying lessons below. You can see videos for all three themes here.
Rhode Island Social Studies Standards
- SSHS.USI.5.5 Westward movement of white Americans
- Argue the impacts of western expansion on Indigenous peoples, immigration, and reshaping the United States
- b. Analyze the effects of the Gold Rush (e.g., on Indigenous peoples, on immigration of people from China, on the environment, on the economy), and argue who benefited
- Argue the impacts of western expansion on Indigenous peoples, immigration, and reshaping the United States
- SSHS.USII.1.4 Second-wave immigration to the United States
- Argue the influence industrialization had on second-wave immigration in the late 19th century, and the impacts of government responses
- a. Analyze the similarities and differences in the backgrounds, cultures, and lived experiences of U.S. immigrants after the Civil War (e.g., those from Italy, Poland, Russia, Portugal, Greece, Armenia, China, Japan, Korea, Punjab, Bengal, India, Mexico)
- b. Analyze the policies and practices of the U.S. government toward immigration (e.g., Chinese Exclusion Act 1882, Alien Land Act 1913, Immigration Act of 1924), and argue who benefited from those policies and practices
- c. Analyze the relationships among immigration, urbanization, and industrialization, and argue the impacts of those relationships
- d. Analyze the patterns of immigration and urbanization during the late 19th century, and explain the formations of ethnic neighborhoods in cities and their benefits
- Argue the influence industrialization had on second-wave immigration in the late 19th century, and the impacts of government responses
- SSHS.WHII.4.3 Imperialism, expansion, and influence
- Argue how political and economic interests of western states impacted non-western territories in Asia and Africa
- b. Analyze the Meiji Restoration, how fear of western powers lead to it, and argue how it impacted the political and social structure of Japan
- Argue how political and economic interests of western states impacted non-western territories in Asia and Africa
