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No-No Boy
by John Okada
John Okada and his family were held in America’s concentration camps for the Japanese Americans during WWII, and from there, Okada went directly into the US Air Force to serve as a translator intercepting radio communication in the Pacific.
After serving the very country that robbed him of his civil rights, Okada went on to write No-No Boy, a novel about a Japanese American man, Ichiro, who refused to answer yes-yes on the loyalty questionnaire issued by the US government to everyone of Japanese descent. Ichiro is transferred from the concentration camp to federal prison for his refusal to swear loyalty to the US and two years later, he is released into post-WWII America where he struggles to regain his identity and understanding of what it means to be Japanese American.
No-No Boy was released in 1957 and was quickly overlooked by a world trying to move on from WWII. In 1970, the book was rediscovered in a used bookstore but unfortunately, mere months after his book began recirculating in Asian American communities, Okada died in 1971. John Okada is now remembered and celebrated as the first Japanese American novelist.
