Miss Morning Glory: Orientalism and Misogyny in the Queer Writings of Yone Noguchi

Abstract

In 1898 a young Japanese man in his early twenties sat depressed about his new life in America. Low-wage jobs could neither pay for housing nor adequate food for Yone Noguchi. He had grown exhausted from doing domestic work for Americans whom he thought smelled like rotting cheese. He considered giving up on life itself when letters from acclaimed Western writer Charles Warren Stoddard arrived just in time. Upon seeing Stoddard's handwriting, Noguchi's bosom trembled with delight. Sweet letters full of affection and love would boost him to heavenly bliss. Noguchi lavished kisses on the letters and pored over them repeatedly basking in Stoddard's love. Noguchi would then detail his affair with Stoddard, along with his frustrations living in America, in a book titled The American Diary of a Japanese Girl. Under the pen name Miss Morning Glory, Noguchi may have produced Asian America's earliest queer works.