The novel begins with a group of Japanese women and girls, aged 12 to 37, on the boat to America, where they will meet their new husbands. The women’s provenance ranges widely—some are from agrarian, rural backgrounds and others have experienced the refinements of cities such as Tokyo and Kyoto. However, despite the diversity, the narrative refers to them in the first-person plural voice. The women bring a trunk with “all the things [they] [will] need for [their] new lives” (9), including “tiny brass Buddhas,” white wedding kimonos, and English phrase books. They wear pictures of their future husbands in oval lockets around their necks.

As the women endure the discomfort of traveling in steerage class and befriend each other, the chief topic of conversation is their future husbands. Professional matchmakers sent the women photographs of these young men, who are handsome and surrounded by American status symbols such as Western-style suits and Model T Fords. The women consider themselves lucky to have escaped a life of hard labor in the Japanese rice fields and think that America cannot fail to be better. Their future husbands’ letters, which describe privileges such as personal gardens to plant flowers in, contribute to this optimistic view.