No-No Boy by John Okada

Starting the #Reading50States challenge

Inspired by the #Reading50States challenge from @surabhi.reading on Instagram, my goal this year is to read a book of fiction, poetry, or memoir that takes place in each state in the U.S. or at the very least was written by someone with strong ties to the state in question — I’m flexible because my goal is ultimately to just read some good and important books. What I will be reading won’t necessarily be a statement about what I think is the best book of each state; they’ll simply be books I’m interested in that look promising. I’m excited to get to some classics of American literature that I have been meaning to read forever, revisit some classics I haven’t read in years, and learn about states I know very little about (I’ve only actually been to/driven through 19). Over time, I’ve learned how pervasive and inaccurate the concept of a “flyover state” is, and how much the term ignores the dynamic diversity, history, cultural heritage that each state is home to. I’m starting off my challenge with the American West, and like a road trip, I hope to make my way cross-country, region by region.

My reading journey begins in Washington state with No-No Boy by John Okada. This book’s reputation precedes itself — it’s often cited as one of the first prominent examples of the Asian American novel and is indisputably a classic of Asian American literature. It’s taken me years to get to it, and in a way, I’m glad that I didn’t read it earlier because it’s so complex that I may not have fully understood what it was trying to do at a younger age — even now, I can’t say I understand it completely, and I love when a book can give me that feeling. It feels eerily resonant after personally and collectively experiencing the effects of anti-Asian violence during Covid-19. I sense that I will be thinking about this book for a long time.

No-No Boy is the story of one of the “no-no boys” during WWII — a term that traditionally refers to Nisei¹ citizens who answered “no” to the two loyalty questions on a form the War Relocation Authority distributed in the prison camps that Japanese Americans were forcibly moved to during the war. No-no boys were segregated from those who had answered yes, and those who also resisted the draft were imprisoned. The reasons why people said no are varied — for some it was a political act of resistance, for others it was because the language of the questionnaire was misleading, and still others said no for even more reasons. Okada’s No-No Boy begins as the protagonist, a 25-year old draft resister and no-no boy named Ichiro Yamada, gets off a bus in Seattle, his hometown, and sees his family and friends again for the first time since his imprisonment. But instead of being welcomed back with open arms, strangers call him out and beat him up. People in his own community are confused by him or outright ashamed of him.

It confirms the thought that has been nagging him: What if I made the wrong decision? What if all of my youthful pride and righteousness has cost me everything?

“I, too, have made a mistake and I, too, have served time, two years all told, and I have been granted a full pardon. Why is it then that I am unable to convince myself that I am no different from any other American? Why is it that, in my freedom, I feel more imprisoned in the wrongness of myself and the thing I did than when I was in prison? Am I really never to know again what it is to be American? If there should be an answer, what is it? What penalty is it that I must pay to justify my living as I so fervently desire to?”

He becomes an agitated and angry flâneur who revisits his old haunts in the International District and tries to reintegrate into society, all while asking himself the questions at the heart of the novel: Why do humans hate each other, and why do they hate themselves? Is there a way for an individual to rectify society’s wrongs? If not, how do we go on living?

This is probably one of the angriest books I’ve read in a long time. It’s hard to read at points because of how much racism is portrayed, but I sense that Okada was attempting to paint a realistic portrait of time he lived through. His book is a complex indictment of the hatred he witnessed and its absurd manifestations, including ways that his own Asian American community perpetuated racism even as they were still processing the violence committed upon them.

I find it fascinating that Okada’s life was quite different from Ichiro’s. He was not a no-no boy. In fact, he answered yes to the loyalty questionnaire, and rather than resist the draft, Okada volunteered to serve. While stationed in Guam, he flew planes over the Pacific to intercept and translate Japanese radio communications. I wonder if No-No Boy was a way of imagining what would have happened if he hadn’t tried to be the model citizen his country wanted him to be.

What makes this classic so strong, I think, is that, rather than serving as a political manifesto, at its core it is honest about his character’s ambiguity in the world of politics, in his community, and toward himself. Ichiro feels pressure throughout the book to explain why he said no — Was it out of a deep loyalty to Japan, that he feels more Japanese than American? Cowardice? A protest against incarceration? — but he never gives a straight answer. It is perhaps for all or none of these reasons. You really feel for him as a reader and begin to feel his ambiguity, too, which gives his character so much humanity.

Till next time,

Shannon

1. Japanese people who were born outside of Japan (typically used to specifically describe Japanese Americans) whose parents were immigrants from Japan. Literally meaning “second generation.”