The Times Takes a Dim View of Interracial Marriage

March 11, 1909: Helen Gladys Emery and Gunjiro Aoki announce their engagement. The Times notes that a marriage between them would be illegal in California. March 27, 1909: Emery and Aoki travel to Seattle in their attempt to get married. April 11, 1909: The Times reports the Aoki-Emery marriage in Seattle, but notes that they are buying a home through an intermediary. June 22, 1910: The Aoki family comes to Los Angeles in an attempt to escape publicity, renting a house at 226 E. 28th St. View Larger Map Nov. 11, 1933: Helen Gladys Oakie seeks the restoration of her American citizenship, which she lost by marrying Aoki. According to California death records, a woman named Helen Gladys Eddy, with the maiden name Emery, died in 1947.

Dec. 24, 1909: As I have noted before, I rarely republish The Times’ editorials because they are frequently embarrassing and this piece on the marital problems of Gladys Helen Emery and Gunjiro Aoki is a prime example.  An anonymous scribe hurled some vicious barbs at the couple, tut-tutting like an elderly uncle at the folly of a white woman marrying a man who was only part human.

Comments

[Mary Ostrem]

Thanks for finding and sharing this. What a shock.

[Mary Mallory]

Did they get divorced in 1933, or did they change the spelling to Americanize the name? Aoki becoming Oakie? People need to see these negative stories of racial, sexual, and economic bigotry to understand how far we have come, but how far we need to go in terms of sexual and other equality.

[Bill T]

How did she lose her US citizenship? Presumably it was somehow connected to her marriage to Mr Aoki, but how? I am constantly amazed at the lengths the racists will stretch a point, just to deny the obvious and prevent the inevitable.

Their children born in the US are of course US citizens under the terms of the 14th amendment, as one of the articles readily admits. But why she would lose her natural born citizenship through marriage is unfathomable.