Japanese War Brides: Across A Wide Divide
"Japanese War Brides: Across a Wide Divide" explores the story of the more than 45,000 Japanese women who immigrated to the United States after World War II and how their bold passage reshaped communities across the country.
All Exhibits & EventsExhibition Overview
The Japanese War Brides: Across a Wide Divide traveling exhibition tells the extraordinary story of over 45,000 Japanese women who married American servicemen and immigrated to the United States after World War II. These women, once dehumanized as the enemy, defied societal norms, as well as racial and gender barriers, reshaping communities across the country. Their bold journey played a pivotal role in altering immigration laws, redefining race relations, and expanding the meaning of American identity.
Rooted in the research of three daughters of Japanese war brides, Japanese War Brides: Across a Wide Divide is both a tribute to the courage of these women and the legacies they left behind, as well as a reflection on broader themes of immigration, identity, and the adaptability of the human spirit.
Japanese War Brides: Across a Wide Divide was developed in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, the National Museum of American History, and War Bride Experience, Inc. This exhibition was made possible through federal funding from the Asian Pacific American Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, with additional support from the Sachiko Kuno Philanthropic Fund.
The Japanese War Brides Oral History Archive
The Japanese War Brides Oral History Archive is an online collection of 40 stories (3 to –10-minute audio stories with photographs) of Japanese women who married American servicemen after World War II and came to the United States. The narratives are told by the Japanese war brides — now in their late 80s and 90s — and their families to a daughter of a Japanese war bride, journalist Kathryn Tolbert. She interviewed more than 100 people — war brides, their husbands, children, grandchildren, in-laws — in 20 states from 2015 to 2019. The interviews were conducted in person, with a digital recorder. Kathryn scanned family photos at the interview and later combined parts of the interview with photos to create short stories for the archive, which combines journalism and traditional oral history.
Louisiana interview: Yoshiko Arakaki and Eugene Dale Skains
If you are or are the descendant of a Japanese war bride and are interested in being interviewed, please contact the Curator, Anne Mahoney at Anne.Mahoney@SOS.LA.Gov
For Teachers
Additional Research
These stories were gathered as part of the SITES exhibition Japanese War Brides: Across a Wide Divide during its time on display at Louisiana’s Old State Capitol March-June 2026.
Yoneko Sugimura Moon
(1936 - 2025)
Yoneko Sugimura survived the atomic bomb the United States detonated over Nagasaki by hiding in tunnels, but lost her mother to radiation cancer, leaving her and her six siblings orphaned. Yoneko’s brother raised the family.
In her 20s, Yoneko loved the western actress Audrey Hepburn and cut her hair to imitate Hepburn’s signature look in the 1953 movie Roman Holiday. Yoneko even modeled for a local cosmetic company while in Japan.
Yoneko met Holsapple when he was stationed in Japan in the 1950s. Shortly after the birth of their daughter, the marriage ended, and Yoneko raised her daughter on her own in California. During a return visit to Japan, Yoneko met U.S. Marine Larry R. Moon, who was stationed there at the time. The two married some time later and began a life together rooted in service, family, and cross-cultural understanding. Larry devoted more than twenty-five years to the United States Marine Corps, retiring as a Sergeant Major after a distinguished military career. They settled in Lafayette, Louisiana, where Yoneko became a cultural ambassador until her death in 2025.
Yoneko coordinated an immersive exchange experience for Lafayette students with families in Japan, brought Dudley Lastrapes to Japan, coordinated bringing a Japanese baseball team to ULL, and brought Japanese performers to Festival international.
Emiko Noda Comeaux
(1928 - 2022)
In compliance with AFFE/ 8A Circular 600 – 240, dated 10 January 1955, request that a files check for marriage be conducted on Miss NODA, Emi, prospective alien spouse of Specialist Third Class Euceville F. COMEAUX Jr, RA 18 203 910, presently a member of the command.
- U.S. Army Garrison Camp Kokura APO3, February 1957. From the archives of the family.
Having checked the records of Police and Counterintelligence files, the Army gave Euceville “Fred” Comeaux from Providence Street, New Iberia, Louisiana permission to marry Emiko “Emi” Teresa Noda from Kyomachi Yukuhashi City, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. Emi met Fred while she was in the Army base Catholic church choir, which Fred directed. They had three marriage ceremonies, two civil services and one Japanese.
Emi was pregnant with her first of four children when she and Fred traveled back to his parent’s house in New Iberia, Louisiana. Fred worked at Pelican Aviation until retirement and Emi raised their children. When the youngest, Linda, started school, Emi became a seamstress for private clients and later Beall’s Department Store. She also made Mardi Gras ball gowns, including her own that she wore to the annual ball. Emi and Fred became pillars of the local church and performing arts communities, directing plays, building sets, and sewing the costumes.
Haruko Kawauchi Harvison
(1935 - 2018)
When Haruko Kawauchi met Air Force serviceman Robert Harvison in Okinawa, she was already a widow with a small child. Robert repeatedly returned to the boutique where Haruko worked, but she said she would not marry someone in the military. When Robert completed his tour, he returned to New Iberia to set up a life and go back for Haruko. She finally agreed to marry him, and they were married January 30, 1970. Haruko had ideas about how America was going to be. New Iberia was not what she expected, but she built a life and a community in Louisiana. She became Baptist, learned to cook Louisiana food, and eventually gave up her Japanese citizenship by becoming an American citizen (Japan does not allow dual citizenship). Robert and Haruko raised two children: her son from Japan and their daughter, Angela.
Haruko eventually found other Japanese War Brides and immigrants to gather once a month in New Iberia and spend the day together, cooking traditional food and speaking in their native language.
Yoko “Betty” Iwasa Godeau/Wells
(1934 - 2025)
Yoko was born in Kobe, Japan. After her father’s death, she and her mother moved to her grandparents’ home in Akashi, Japan, where her grandfather owned a blanket factory. She grew up in a once peaceful but later war-torn beach town. She would tell stories of walking to school with a helmet and witnessing casualties and devastation from bombings of an airplane factory there. Nevertheless, she thrived in school where she was fluent in two languages, was trained in nursing and learned to sew with perfection along with other Japanese arts.
She met Walter Joseph Godeau (1931 – 2017) at the army hospital in Kobe where he was being treated for a burn he suffered as an army cook. He was the youngest of 5 siblings of a sharecropper family from Opelousas, Louisiana who also lost his father at a young age and enlisted in the service at 18. Yoko and Walter fell in love and were married on March 17, 1953, and “Betty” (her nickname) left her native country for the “American Dream.” She soon learned that the dream was not as romantic as she had imagined after weeks on a ship at sea and a bleak bus ride from Seattle to rural Louisiana, where she was introduced to extreme heat and humidity, foreign food and her Cajun speaking in-laws.
They built their first home in the Lake Charles area where Walter was a fireman, and started their family right away. Yoko quickly acclimated and learned to cook all kinds of dishes along with her Japanese food. She was the typical housewife of the 1950s and raised three daughters in a spotless home. She and Walter were active in the Methodist church and in the community. She was independent and industrious and sold Avon, supervised a Head Start summer program, worked in clothing retail (for the discount to buy her teenage girls’ clothes) and owned Yoko’s Oriental Gift Shop in the 1970s. She became a U.S. citizen, loved to drive and play cards with friends and family and get together for meals with her Japanese friends.
Yoko and Walter divorced after 34 years of marriage. She remarried Michael Wells in 2000 and was widowed. Through many hardships and tragedies, she never gave up and continued to have a zest for life until the time of her death at 91. She was proud of her family including four grandchildren and 6 great grandchildren.
