Beyond the Shadow of Camptown: Korean Military Brides in America

6. Sisters Do It For Themselves: Building Community

chapter 6 Sisters Do It for Themselves Building Community When Mrs. Bugelli first arrived in the United States in 1957, her father-in-law clipped an article in the local newspaper about another Korean woman who had married an American. He arranged for the two women to meet. Mrs. Bugelli recalled that she was so happy to see another Korean that she could barely contain herself. It is impossible, she said, to describe her joy at meeting another Korean after being alone in a sea of foreign faces. But because both women were busy with work and family, they were unable to meet regularly. Eventually they lost contact. Mrs. Bugelli was to have little contact with other Koreans until she was drawn into a regional military brides’ organization in the 1990s. Mrs. Crispin, who arrived in 1965, recalled that an American asked for her phone number at an open house she attended during her first months in the United States. The American knew of another Korean military bride in the area and promised to get them in touch. One day, Mrs. Crispin’s telephone rang. When she answered, “Hello?” a woman responded in Korean. It was the first time Mrs. Crispin had heard Korean since her arrival in America several months earlier. The two women became friends, working at the same factory, cooking and eating Korean 188 food together, maintaining contact as they followed their husbands across oceans and to different states. This new friend had arrived in 1957 by boat, eight years before Mrs. Crispin. The two women remained close until, faced with her husband’s adultery, Mrs. Crispin’s friend committed suicide in the mid-1970s. Feeling the need for military brides to formally organize themselves, Mrs. Crispin was to become a founding member of a military bride organization in 1979. These are just two examples of Korean military brides connecting with each other during those early years when fellow Koreans were hard to find. Some, like Mrs. Bugelli, found that the pressures of making a living and caring for a family left no time for socializing. Others, like Mrs. Crispin, built lasting friendships that led to the desire to create organizations of military brides. Whatever her situation, however, every military bride I met spoke of trying to meet Koreans. Many said that while they wanted to meet Koreans in general, they were most interested in meeting military brides like themselves. Some remembered that other Koreans, particularly students who often came from wealthy families and assumed that military brides were uneducated and lower class, maintained their distance. Only with fellow military brides, they said, could they develop close friendships. In those early years during the 1950s and 1960s when Koreans were few and far between, sympathetic husbands and in-laws often helped them connect. As was the case with Mrs. Bugelli, articles in local newspapers about hometown boys bringing back Korean wives, when spotted by an in-law, sometimes became the link that connected them to their first Korean acquaintances. Sometimes word of mouth through fellow church members or colleagues at work provided in-laws with information about other Korean military brides and the means to introduce them. Some military brides, however, recalled that their husbands and in-laws frowned on their meeting with other Koreans, effectively preventing such meetings. For these women, it was often years before they would be able to connect with fellow Koreans. Other women recalled coincidentally meeting other military brides at workplaces such as factories. Sometimes women would contrive ways to accidentally meet other Koreans whom they encountered in public spaces. Mrs. Crispin recalled that whenever she and her husband spotted an Asian, especially an Asian woman, her husband (using a Korean term of endearment reserved sisters do it for themselves 189 for married couples) would call out to her, Yuhbo! If the person looked up or paid attention, said Mrs. Crispin, then that was a sign that she was Korean. At the Chinese grocery store where Mrs. Crispin bought food items similar to those used in Korean cooking, she would sometimes spot a woman whom she felt was Korean. Then she would accidentally bump grocery carts, excuse herself in Korean, and strike up a conversation if the woman turned out to also be Korean. This same method was used by Mrs. Ramos, who arrived more than two decades later, in 1987. Mrs. Ramos explained that even though most people at...