Throughout his career as a poet and English
professor at Keio University in Tokyo, Yone No-
guchi continued to publish in English from Japan.
His essay collection Through the Torii (1914)
represents one of the earliest Asian responses
in English regarding the dialogue between East-
ern and Western artistic traditions. In addition
to his introductions to Japanese poetry, Kyoto,
and cherry blossoms, Noguchi also composed
sketches about Western contemporaries such as
W. B. Yeats, Oscar Wilde, and American painter
James McNeill Whistler. Moreover, his two-vol-
ume poetry collection The Pilgrimage (1914) was
well received by readers, and he eventually pub-
lished his autobiography The Story of Yone Nogu-
chi Told by Himself (1914).
After moving to Japan, Noguchi began to write
increasingly only in his native language, and his
attention turned away from literature and toward
art. Noguchi’s fame largely came to rest on his in-
terpretations of Japanese culture for Western au-
diences in works such as The Spirit of Japanese Art
(1915) and monographs on Japanese artists such
as Hokusai (1925) and Harunobu (1927). How-
ever, during the years leading up to World War II,
Noguchi’s sentiments turned decidedly national-
ist in works designed to rouse fervor and support
among the Japanese. In 1935, capitalizing on his
relationship with the Indian poet Rabindranath
Tagore, the Japanese government sent Noguchi to
India as an envoy of Japan to build support for
Japan’s East Asian expansion plans. This ambas-
sadorial trip to India was the focus of The Gan-
ges Calls Me (1938), Noguchi’s final collection of
poems in English.
Noguchi eventually found himself disillu-
sioned in the aftermath of Japan’s militarism.
With his home destroyed by the Tokyo bombing
raids and fires, Noguchi relocated to the city’s
outskirts, where he died of stomach cancer on
July 13, 1947. He, however, had reconciled with
his son before his death, and in 1950, Isamu No-
guchi designed “The Noguchi Room” that looks
out onto an accompanying sculpture garden at
Keio University’s Mita campus in honor of his
father.
Bibliography
Hakutani, Yoshinobu. “Ezra Pound, Yone Noguchi,
and Imagism.” Modern Philology 90, no. 1 (August
1992): 46–69.
Noguchi, Yone. The American Diary of a Japanese
Girl. New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1902.
———. Selected English Writings of Yone Noguchi: An
East-West Literary Assimilation, edited by, Yoshi-
nobu Hakutani. London: Associated University
Presses, Vol. 1, Poetry, 1990; Vol. 2, Prose, 1992.
———. The Story of Yone Noguchi, Told by Himself.
Philadelphia: G.W. Jacobs, 1915.
Sueyoshi, Amy. “Mindful Masquerades: Que(e)rying
Japanese Immigrant Dress in Turn-of-the-Cen-
tury San Francisco.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women
Studies. 25, no. 3 (2004): 67–100.
M. Gabot FabrosNo-No Boy John Okada (1957)
JOHN OKADA’s only novel, No-No Boy narrates the
story of Ichiro Yamada, who is torn during World
War II between his filial duty to his Japanese im-
migrant parents and his allegiance to the United
States, his native country.
In January 1943 the U.S. War Department
formed a special military unit and drafted sec-
ond-generation Japanese Americans. Each man
was asked to respond to the two most important
questions of the required loyalty oath: Number
27—“are you willing to serve in the armed forces
of the United States in combat duty wherever or-
dered[?]”; and number 28—“will you swear un-
qualified allegiance to the United States of America
and faithfully defend the United States from any
or all attacks of foreign or domestic forces, and
forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to
the Japanese Emperor, to any other foreign gov-
ernment, power, or organization?” Anyone who
answered “no” to either of these questions was
imprisoned. These reactionaries became known as
the “no-no boys.”
Ichiro Yamada’s heartbreaking struggle centers
on his inability to be either Japanese or American.
Ichiro, raised in Seattle as a Japanese at home andNo-No Boy 219