Letters of a Japanese schoolboy ("Hashimura Togo")

"Letters of a Japanese Schoolboy ('Hashimura Togo')" by Wallace Irwin is a satirical work written in the early 20th century. The text presents the humorous and often absurd experiences of a 35-year-old Japanese schoolboy named Hashimura Togo, who is navigating life as an immigrant in America. Through his letters to a New York newspaper editor, Togo shares his observations on American culture, politics, and the issues faced by Asian immigrants, all expressed in a unique and comical voice that highlights cultural misunderstandings. At the start of the text, Togo introduces himself and provides context for his situation, explaining his arrival in San Francisco and the hardships he has faced, including a recent injury from a brickbat thrown by an American. He expresses admiration for the concept of the "Noble Allies" between Japan and the United States while lamenting the difficulties he encounters due to his ethnicity, including a lack of employment opportunities. His letters reveal his attempts to assimilate into American society and critique both American culture and the perceptions of Japanese people held by his new compatriots, encapsulated in a style that blends humor and poignancy. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Wallace Irwin was an American writer. Over the course of his long career, Irwin wrote humorous sketches, light verse, screenplays, short stories, novels, nautical lays, aphorisms, journalism, political satire, lyrics for Broadway musicals, and the libretto for an opera. His novel The Julius Caesar Murder Case (1935) represents a subgenre within detective fiction, the mystery novel set in antiquity.