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A review by heymiki65
No-No Boy by John Okada
4.0
It's unfortunate that John Okada was recognized as one of the best Asian writers in America after his death. Though his one book, No-No Boy was published during his lifetime, it was not heavily publicized and went largely unread. Even the Japanese people in the story's setting place, Seattle, either didn't know about it, or did not acknowledge it, as most Japanese-Americans were in Let's-Put-The-Past-Behind-Us mode. This is entirely unfortunate.
As a high school history teacher, we teach about the United States' treatment of our Japanese-American population, and while internment isn't an unknown or even taboo subject like many others, what is taught and what is known is only the surface of that history. Most are not taught that men of fighting age were required to sign a loyalty oath - an oath swearing fealty to a country that was willing to imprison them for the crimes of a nation they never called home.
The oath had twenty-eight questions, the last two being the ones that caused a lot of controversy. The first asked if they were willing to be subject to the draft. The second asked if they would be willing to forswear any allegiance to the emperor of Japan and instead swear loyalty to the United States. If you were a young man who had been in what amounted to a concentration camp for going on two years, would you agree to fight for the country who had imprisoned you? The second question was even more controversial and perplexing than the second. Japanese were unable to get citizenship in the United States due to policies of racial exclusion, but few, if any, had any loyalty at all to the emperor of Japan, so being asked to stop having a loyalty that you didn't have was confusing to some, and angering to others.
Many answered "NO" to both of those questions. Those who did were imprisoned in a penitentiary as criminals. When they got out of the pen two years later, they were label by their peers as "No-No Boys." To those who fought, the No-No Boys were tantamount to traitors, even though they were given a full pardon by the United States. This book is about Ichiro, No-No Boy of 1945 Seattle, trying to find his way after all that had happened. He can't get a job, his friends are no longer his friends, his family is broken, and he carries a chip on his shoulder the size of a world war.
I highly recommend this book. It is beautiful and poignant, full of pain and grace and turmoil and love. Ichiro's journey to self-love and self-forgiveness is one many of us have had to take; the "crime" might be different, but the punishment is quite familiar to us. It is entirely unfortunate that Mr. Okada didn't know how important his book became to a generation of Japanese-Americans who were looking for the exact brand of redemption his book contains.
As a high school history teacher, we teach about the United States' treatment of our Japanese-American population, and while internment isn't an unknown or even taboo subject like many others, what is taught and what is known is only the surface of that history. Most are not taught that men of fighting age were required to sign a loyalty oath - an oath swearing fealty to a country that was willing to imprison them for the crimes of a nation they never called home.
The oath had twenty-eight questions, the last two being the ones that caused a lot of controversy. The first asked if they were willing to be subject to the draft. The second asked if they would be willing to forswear any allegiance to the emperor of Japan and instead swear loyalty to the United States. If you were a young man who had been in what amounted to a concentration camp for going on two years, would you agree to fight for the country who had imprisoned you? The second question was even more controversial and perplexing than the second. Japanese were unable to get citizenship in the United States due to policies of racial exclusion, but few, if any, had any loyalty at all to the emperor of Japan, so being asked to stop having a loyalty that you didn't have was confusing to some, and angering to others.
Many answered "NO" to both of those questions. Those who did were imprisoned in a penitentiary as criminals. When they got out of the pen two years later, they were label by their peers as "No-No Boys." To those who fought, the No-No Boys were tantamount to traitors, even though they were given a full pardon by the United States. This book is about Ichiro, No-No Boy of 1945 Seattle, trying to find his way after all that had happened. He can't get a job, his friends are no longer his friends, his family is broken, and he carries a chip on his shoulder the size of a world war.
I highly recommend this book. It is beautiful and poignant, full of pain and grace and turmoil and love. Ichiro's journey to self-love and self-forgiveness is one many of us have had to take; the "crime" might be different, but the punishment is quite familiar to us. It is entirely unfortunate that Mr. Okada didn't know how important his book became to a generation of Japanese-Americans who were looking for the exact brand of redemption his book contains.