Strange Land: My Mother's War Bride Storydirected by Stephanie J. Castillo, fl. 1992 (Hawaii: Privately Published, 2006), 51 mins
Documentary filmmaker Stephanie J. Castillo tells the story of her mother Norma, among the first Filipino war brides of WWII who came to America. At age 17, Norma met Wallace Castillo, a Hawaii-born son of an immigrant, in Manila during American occupation, and married him there. Norma married Wallace under pressure from her family to leave the war-torn Philippines and to live the American dream. She arrived in Hawaii from the Philippines in 1946, pregnant and a stranger to this land. The film details her adjustments to being married and to a culture she thought was her own, only to find out regional differences exist among Filipinos. Her trials and tribulations are softened when she begins to have children, and her destiny in America becomes clear. What happened to her dream? Was her sacrifice worth it? Norma was one of 500,000 war brides from 50 different countries who married American servicemen. The film is a tribute to all the war brides who left their homelands, their families and their cultures to begin a new life in America with their soldier husbands.
