Filling in the Blank Spot in an Incomplete War Bride Archive

Abstract

“Filling in the Blank Spot in an Incomplete War Bride Archive” concludes this book by looking at Japanese war brides. The chapter privileges the family album as a unique archive for family history, memory, and representation. Family photographs offer a unique way to reimagine the place of war brides in Japanese/American history. Creef uses her war bride mother’s photograph album in order to fill in this blank spot in American history where the lives of these immigrant women—as wives, mothers, citizens, and witnesses of war—have been archived in personal photograph collections even as they remain well out of public sight. In imagining new narratives for elusive histories, Creef makes clear that the family album is a repository for desires and longings as well as a conduit for affective and political investments.