How to be an American Housewife: American Red Cross Brides’ Schools of the Occupation of Japan

Abstract

This paper looks at the role of the soldier husbands in the establishment of the American Red Cross Brides’ Schools in Japan and their influence on the schools’ content. Without an American husband, these women would not have been able to immigrate to the United States, and without this immigration, these schools would not have existed. This paper argues that schools were created for the benefit of the American GI husbands of Japanese women, were a form of pre-assimilation, and an extension of American soft power during the occupation and democratisation of Japan.