John Okada (September 23, 1923 – February 20, 1971) was a

Japanese American are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in number to constitute the sixth largest Asi ...

novelist known for his critically acclaimed novel ''

No-No Boy ''No-No Boy'' is a 1957 novel, and the only novel published by the Japanese American writer John Okada. It tells the story of a Japanese-American in the aftermath of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Set in Seattle, Washing ...

''.No-No Boy by John Okada
/ref>

Biography

Born in Seattle, Okada was a student at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

during the

attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, j ...

. Okada had to interrupt his studies, and he and his family were among thousands of American citizens

interned Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...

Minidoka War Relocation Center Minidoka National Historic Site is a National Historic Site in the western United States. It commemorates the more than 13,000 Japanese Americans who were imprisoned at the Minidoka War Relocation Center during the Second World War.

in 1942 as a result of

Executive Order 9066 Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. This order authorized the secretary of war to prescribe certain ...

. Okada was taken out of the internment camp and recruited to the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

after he completed a loyalty questionnaire which asked him to "forswear allegiance" to the

Emperor of Japan The Emperor of Japan is the monarch and the head of the Imperial House of Japan, Imperial Family of Japan. Under the Constitution of Japan, he is defined as the symbol of the Japanese state and the unity of the Japanese people, and his positio ...

. He served as a Japanese translator, overflying Japanese forces in the Pacific and translating intercepted Japanese communications. After the war, Okada returned to his educational pursuits, earning a bachelor's degree in English and a second bachelor's degree in

library science Library science (often termed library studies, bibliothecography, and library economy) is an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary field that applies the practices, perspectives, and tools of management, information technology, education, and ...

from the University of Washington, as well as a master's degree in English from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. In 1956, Okada completed the manuscript for his novel ''

'', which was published the following year. Over the years, Okada worked several different jobs including as a librarian and technical writer. Okada died of a heart attack on February 20, 1971, at the age of 47. He was survived by his wife Dorothy, as well as a son and a daughter. He is interred at

Evergreen Washelli Memorial Park Evergreen Washelli Memorial Park originated in 1885. It is located on both sides of Aurora Avenue in Seattle, Washington, and occupies roughly 144 acres (58 ha). It is the largest cemetery in Seattle. History At the time of its inception, the a ...

in Seattle. Okada's younger brother

Frank Okada Frank Okada (1931–2000) was an American Abstract Expressionist painter, mainly active in the Pacific Northwest. His mature style often featured brightly colored, off-kilter geometric shapes done in large format, including round canvasses; subtl ...

was a noted abstract expressionist painter.

Literary works

Okada's only completed and published novel, ''

'' (1957) deals with the aftermath of the

Japanese American internment Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

during World War II, Japanese-American identity, and how this event divided the Japanese American population after the war. He explored feelings among Japanese nationals, some of whom still held dreams of a return to Japan, and among their native-born American children, who felt conflicted about their identity but identified with the United States. Some of both generations were intensely bitter about their treatment in being interned during the war, in addition to the substantial economic and social losses they had suffered. John Okada's “No-No Boy” captures the injustice of incarcerating Japanese-Americans during World War II — and serves as a warning today for our own fractured society. The protagonist is a native-born American of Japanese descent who answered "No" on two important questions posed by the government: would he vow loyalty and would he enlist in the Army? Those who answered "no" were sentenced to two years in prison. On returning to Seattle after prison, he has to confront veterans whom he knew from before the war, some of whom were wounded and all of whom look down on him. He also struggles with his parents, as his mother clings to the belief that Japan did not lose the war and eventually loses her sanity. The novel did not get much notice, coming too soon after the war for people to want to explore the harshness of his portrayal and confrontation with hard questions. Okada's novel was rediscovered by some writers from Los Angeles in 1976, who tracked down his wife to meet her and see if she had any of his manuscripts. She had struggled after his death and, unable to find a publisher interested in his next manuscript and disappointed at the rejection of his papers by UCLA, she burned everything: novel, notes, letters, etc. In his introduction to the new 1976 edition of the novel,

Lawson Fusao Inada Lawson Fusao Inada (born May 26, 1938) is a Japanese American poet. He was the fifth poet laureate of the state of Oregon. Early life Born May 26, 1938, Inada is a third-generation Japanese American (''Sansei''). His father, Fusaji, worked as a d ...

writes of meeting Okada's wife, Dorothy, in

La Grande, Oregon La Grande is a city in Union County, Oregon, United States. Originally named "Brownsville," it was forced to change its name because that name was being used for a city in Linn County. Located in the Grande Ronde Valley, the city's name comes ...

1976:

Dorothy is a truly wonderful person. It hurt to have her tell us that "John would have liked you." It hurt to have her tell us that "you two are the first ones who ever came to see him about his work." It hurt to have her tell us that she recently burned his "other novel about the
Issei is a Japanese-language term used by ethnic Japanese in countries in North America and South America to specify the Japanese people who were the first generation to immigrate there. are born in Japan; their children born in the new country are ...
, which we both researched and which was almost finished." It hurt to have her tell us that "the people I tried to contact about it never answered so when I moved I burned it, because ''I have him in my heart''." ..You could say John was "ahead of his time," that he was born too early and died too young.

In 2018, Frank Abe, Greg Robinson, and Floyd Cheung published ''John Okada: The Life and Rediscovered Writings of the Author of'' No-No Boy. This volume, which received an

American Book Award The American Book Award is an American literary award that annually recognizes a set of books and people for "outstanding literary achievement". According to the 2010 awards press release, it is "a writers' award given by other writers" and "the ...

in 2019, includes a substantial biography authored by Abe and based on interviews with Okada's family members and friends. The rediscovered works include a poem that Okada wrote during the night of the attack on Pearl Harbor entitled "I Must Be Strong," a play about the US occupation of Japan which was produced at the Tryout Theater in 1946, five short stories which were published in the ''Northwest Times'' in 1947, and two satirical essays about the military-industrial complex written during his stint as a technical writer at Hughes Aircraft Company between 1958 and 1961. NO NO BOY COVER

Legacy and honors

The Asian-American ethnic-theme dorm at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

is named Okada in John Okada's honor.Stanford Undergraduate Housing Information on Okada
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References

Critical studies

(from the MLA database, March 2008) #A Lacanian Reading of ''

'' and ''

Obasan ''Obasan'' is a novel by Japanese-Canadian author Joy Kogawa. First published by Lester and Orpen Dennys in 1981, it chronicles Canada's internment and persecution of its citizens of Japanese descent during the Second World War from the perspec ...

'': Traumatic Thing and Transformation into Subjects of Jouissance By: Chen, Fu-Jen; ''Comparatist: Journal of the Southern Comparative Literature Association'', 2007 May; 31: 105–29. (journal article) #"Psychology and Asian American Literature: Application of the Life-Story Model of Identity to ''

''" By: Cheung, Floyd; CR: ''The New Centennial Review'', 2006 Fall; 6 (2): 191–214. (journal article) #"A Passion for the Impossible:

Richard Rorty Richard McKay Rorty (October 4, 1931 – June 8, 2007) was an American philosopher. Educated at the University of Chicago and Yale University, he had strong interests and training in both the history of philosophy and in contemporary analytic phi ...

, John Okada, and

James Baldwin James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer. He garnered acclaim across various media, including essays, novels, plays, and poems. His first novel, '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'', was published in 1953; de ...

" By: Bush, Harold K., Jr.. pp. 171–86 IN: Griesinger, Emily (ed. and introd.); Eaton, Mark (ed.); ''The Gift of Story: Narrating Hope in a Postmodern World''. Waco, TX: Baylor UP; 2006. xii, 391 pp. (book article) #"Once More, with Feeling: Cold War Masculinity and the Sentiment of Patriotism in John Okada's ''No-No Boy''" By: Kim, Daniel Y.; ''Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts'', 2005 Winter; 47 (1): 65–83. (journal article) #"John Okada" By: Pulliam, June. pp. 260–64 IN: Madsen, Deborah L. (ed. and introd.); ''Asian American Writers''. Detroit, MI: Gale; 2005. xxiv, 460 pp. (book article) #Two Negations: Fear of Being Excluded and the Logic of Self-Esteem By: Sakai, Naoki; ''Novel: A Forum on Fiction'', 2004 Summer; 37 (3): 229–57. (journal article) #"Two Negations: The Fear of Being Excluded and the Logic of Self-Esteem" By: Sakai, Naoki. pp. 159–92 IN: Calichman, Richard F. (ed. and introd.); ''Contemporary Japanese Thought''. New York, NY: Columbia UP; 2005. viii, 309 pp. (book article) #"Wounded Bodies and the Cold War: Freedom, Materialism, and Revolution in Asian American Literature, 1946-1957" By: Nguyen, Viet Thanh. pp. 158–82 IN: Lawrence, Keith (ed.); Cheung, Floyd (ed.); ''Recovered Legacies: Authority and Identity in Early Asian American Literature''. Philadelphia, PA: Temple UP; 2005. xii, 308 pp. (book article) #"Suffering Male Bodies: Representations of Dissent and Displacement in the Internment-Themed Narratives of John Okada and

Toshio Mori Toshio Mori (March 3, 1910 – 1980) was an American author, best known for being one of the earliest (and perhaps the first) Japanese–American writers to publish a book of fiction. He participated in drawing the UFO Robo Grendizer, the J ...

" By: Arakawa, Suzanne. pp. 183–206 IN: Lawrence, Keith (ed.); Cheung, Floyd (ed.); ''Recovered Legacies: Authority and Identity in Early Asian American Literature''. Philadelphia, PA: Temple UP; 2005. xii, 308 pp. (book article) #"'A Prisoner of Forever': Cognitive Distortions and Depressions in John Okada's ''No-No Boy''" By: Storhoff, Gary; ''Interdisciplinary Literary Studies: A Journal of Criticism and Theory'', 2004 Fall; 6 (1): 1-20. (journal article) #"English as a

Postcolonial Postcolonialism is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands. More specifically, it is a ...

Tool" By: Eoyang, Eugene Chen; ''English Today: The International Review of the English Language'', 2003 Oct; 19 (4 6: 23–29. (journal article) #"The Mother That Won't Reflect Back: Situating Psychoanalysis and the Japanese Mother in ''No-No Boy''" By: Gribben, Bryn; ''MELUS: The Journal of the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States'', 2003 Summer; 28 (2): 31–46. (journal article) #"Sticky Rice Balls or Lemon Pie: Enjoyment and Ethnic Identities in ''No-No Boy'' and ''

''" By: Xu, Wenying; Lit: ''Literature Interpretation Theory'', 2002 Jan-Mar; 13 (1): 51–68. (journal article) #"Not Waving but Drowning: Creativity and Identity in

Diaspora A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin. Historically, the word was used first in reference to the dispersion of Greeks in the Hellenic world, and later Jews after ...

Writing" By: Lim, Shirley; ''Studies in the Linguistic Sciences'', 2001 Spring; 31 (1): 31–47. (journal article) #"''No-No Boy'' by John Okada" By: Ling, Jinqi. pp. 140–50 IN: Wong, Sau-ling Cynthia (ed. and introd.); Sumida, Stephen H. (ed. and introd.); ''A Resource Guide to Asian American Literature''. New York, NY: Modern Language Association of America; 2001. vi, 345 pp. (book article) #"Resilient ImagiNations: ''No-No Boy'', ''

'' and the Limits of Minority Discourse" By: Amoko, Apollo O.; ''Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature'', 2000 Sept; 33 (3): 35–55. (journal article) #"John Okada (1923–1971)" By: Chen, Fu-jen. pp. 281–88 IN: Nelson, Emmanuel S. (ed. and preface); ''Asian American Novelists: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook''. Westport, CT: Greenwood; 2000. xi, 422 pp. (book article) #"Shakespeare, Okada, Kingston: The First Generation" By: Kehler, Dorothea; ''Comparatist: Journal of the Southern Comparative Literature Association'', 1998 May; 22: 110–22. (journal article) #"An Issei Woman's Suffering, Silence, and Suicide in John Okada's ''No-No Boy''" By: Usui, Masami; ''Chu-Shikoku Studies in American Literature'', 1997 June; 33: 43–61. (journal article) #"'Double Consciousness,' Sociological Imagination, and the Asian American Experience" By: Wang, Qun; ''Race, Gender & Class: Asian American Voices'', 1997; 4 (3): 88–94. (journal article) #"'You Had to Be One or the Other': Oppositions and Reconciliation in John Okada's ''No-No Boy''" By: Yogi, Stan; ''

MELUS Melus (also ''Milus'' or ''Meles'', ''Melo'' in Italian) (died 1020) was a Lombard nobleman from the Apulian town of Bari, whose ambition to carve for himself an autonomous territory from the Byzantine catapanate of Italy in the early eleventh ...

'', 1996 Summer; 21 (2): 63–77. (journal article) #"Race, Power, and Cultural Politics in John Okada's ''No-No Boy''" By: Ling, Jinqi; ''American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography'', 1995 June; 67 (2): 359–81. (journal article) #"To Belong or Not to Belong: The Liminality of John Okada's ''No-No Boy''" By: Yeh, William; ''Amerasia Journal'', 1993; 19 (1): 121–33. (journal article) #The Collapse of Difference: Dysfunctional and Inverted Celebrations in John Okada's ''No-No Boy'' By: Yogi, Stan; ''Revue Francaise d'Etudes Americaines'', 1992 Aug; 53: 233–44. (journal article) # Momotaro's Exile: John Okada's ''No-No Boy'' By: Sato, Gayle K. Fujita. pp. 239–58 IN: Lim, Shirley Geok-lin (ed. & introd.); Ling, Amy (ed. & introd.); Kim, Elaine H. (fwd.); ''Reading the Literatures of Asian America''. Philadelphia: Temple UP; 1992. xvii, 376 pp. (book article) #Discourse and Dislocation: Rhetorical Strategies of Asian-American Exclusion and Confinement By: Palumbo-Liu, David; ''Lit: Literature Interpretation Theory'', 1990 July; 2 (1): 1–7. (journal article) #''No-No Boy'' de John Okada (1957): Les Japonais Nisei après la deuxième guerre mondiale et les affres de l'américanisation By: Rigal-Cellard, Bernadette. pp. 89–104 IN: ''Séminaires 1985''. Talence: Centre de Recherches sur l'Amér. Anglophone, Maison des Sciences de l'Homme d'Aquitaine; 1986. 153 pp. (book article) #Of Place and Displacement: The Range of Japanese-American Literature By: Inada, Lawson Fusao. pp. 254–265 IN: Baker, Houston A., Jr. (ed. & pref.); Ong, Walter J. (introd.); ''Three American Literatures: Essays in Chicano, Native American, and Asian-American Literature for Teachers of American Literature''. New York: Modern Language Assn. of America; 1982. 265 pp. (book article) #After Imprisonment: Ichiro's Search for Redemption in ''No-No Boy'' By: McDonald, Dorothy Ritsuko; ''

'', 1979 Fall; 6 (3): 19–26. (journal article) #"The Vision of America in John Okada's ''No-No Boy''" By: Inada, Lawson Fusao; ''Proceedings of the Comparative Literature Symposium,'' 1978; 9: 275–87. (journal article) #''No-No Boy'' By: Inada, Lawson Fusao. Seattle: Combined Asian-Amer. Resources Project (U of Washington P); 1978. 276 pp. (book) {{DEFAULTSORT:Okada, John 1923 births 1971 deaths American writers of Japanese descent University of Washington Information School alumni Columbia University alumni Writers from Seattle Japanese-American internees United States Army soldiers American military personnel of Japanese descent 20th-century American novelists American male novelists American novelists of Asian descent 20th-century American male writers Novelists from Washington (state) American military personnel of World War II

Biography

Literary works

Legacy and honors

See also

References

Critical studies