(Stars and Stripes)

Seoul, South Korea, April 1962: One of the 46 students of the American Red Cross Brides’ School receives her diploma during graduation ceremonies in the auditorium of the Seoul Area Command Service Club from Mrs. Samuel L. Myers, honorary vice chairman of the American Red Cross Volunteer Services, and wife of Lt. Gen. Myers, Eighth Army deputy commanding general. The brides’ school, organized in the Republic of Korea in 1957, was sponsored by the American Red Cross and operated through the volunteer services of American dependents stationed in the Seoul area. The graduation ceremonies culminated a six-week course designed to prepare Korean wives of military and civilian personnel serving in Korea for life in the United States, the accompanying article notes.

The experiences of Korean (as well as Vietnamese and Japanese) so-called “GI Brides” has only recently come to the fore as brides — and more often their daughters — began documenting their histories. Works by author Grace M. Cho (“Haunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame, Secrecy, and The Forgotten War,” and “Tastes Like War: A Memoir”), the 2018 documentary “Fall Up Seven Times, Get Up Eight: The Japanese War Brides,” as well as work by scholars of Asian-American history document the discrimination, racism and isolation many of the women experienced in their new American homeland.

Stars and Stripes covered various aspects of the assimilation of so-called GI brides through the decades. Discover more of this part of Asian American history and heritage in our historic newspaper archive. We have digitized our 1948-1999 European and Pacific editions, as well as several of our WWII editions and made them available online through https://starsandstripes.newspaperarchive.com/