Introduction
The Second World War brought a lot of pain, unnecessary suffering, and most importantly, loss of lives to all parties or in that case, to all countries who participated. Some of the remarkable countries who participated heavily in the form of military, resource, and manpower contributions include but may not be limited to the United States, Japan, the Soviet Union, Germany, and the United Kingdom. In a nutshell, the Second World War was a global military and political conflict between two groups or alliances—the Axis and the Allied Powers. One of the most prominent countries that belong to the Axis Powers is Japan. On the other side of the war, on the other hand, were the Allied Powers, one of the most prominent members of which was the United States. The objective of this paper is to discuss the different significant events that happened in John Okada’s novel entitled the No-No Boy.
Thesis Statement
The period of Japanese internment brought upon intercultural tensions on Japanese Americans. First generation Japanese Americans were forced to make tough decisions that led to division and hatred within their communities. Okada showed us how tensions between the Nisei and the Iseis and those who chose to serve in the military and those who became no-no boys led to division within the Japanese American community.
Argument I: The decision of some Iseis not to join the war against the Japanese Empire was primary affected by the nationalistic ideas of their parents
Basically, No-No Boy was a novel about a fictional character named Ichiro. Ichiro was born to her parents, both of whom were Iseis. Iseis, during that time, was the term used to describe the first generation of Japanese nationals who migrated to the United States for whatever reason they may have such as economic, political, or cultural, among others. There was another term used during the time period portrayed in Okada’s novel and that term was Nisei. Nisei was the term used to describe the second generation of Japanese Americans or the Japanese nationals who were practically American citizens during the time of the Second World War.
Another operational definition of the term Nisei in the novel was the son or daughters of the Iseis or the first generation of Japanese who migrated to the United States.
Evidence 1
As a form of textual evidence from the book, Okada wrote “We were Japanese with Japanese feelings and Japanese pride and Japanese thoughts because it was all right to be Japanese and feel and think all the things that the Japanese do even if we lived in America. Then there came a time when I was only half Japanese because one is not born in America and raised in America and taught in America without becoming American and loving it” . This passage from the novel only tells how large the influence of Ichiro’s mother was on him and his decision not to join the war against their own people in Japan—because they were living in the United States at the time.
In the novel, the protagonist or the main character was Ichiro. Ichiro was a Nisei, which automatically makes his parents Iseis. Some of the most important points that have to be considered about her parents in order to understand the story and thus the analysis that will be presented in this paper include the fact that her mother, even after having stayed within the boundaries of the United States for so many years, still considers herself loyal to the Japanese Emperor. She still considers herself as Japanese; it also meant that she wanted to raise Ichiro and his brother the Japanese way—after all; she belonged to the first generation of Japanese Americans who migrated to the United States. Between his two parents, his mother appeared to be the one with the stronger personality because his father was described in the story as a person who flips out and folds whenever there is a serious problem.
There were even scenes in the novel where his father was portrayed as a drunkard who succumbed into alcoholism when he could not figure out whether to join the US Armed Forces in their battle against the Japanese Empire after the former’s military and naval base got attacked in Pearl Harbor; and when he could not figure out whether to allow his sons to be a part of the U.S. effort to fight and stop the Japanese, whatever their plans for the Asia and the Pacific during that time were. The point of mentioning these two key points about Ichiro’s parents is to point out how the ideologies, behavior, and character of his parents affected his decision and thus the outcomes of his life later on. As it can be recalled in the novel, Ichiro had two options—to join the United States Armed Forces along with other Americans (i.e. black and white Americans among other cultures who made up the cultural pool in the United States) against the Japanese Empire or not to fight and just see the natural outcome of the war unfold without contributing any effort. Ichiro chose the second option. Perhaps because of the stronger and more dominant personality of his mother, she got persuaded to still honor their family’s Japanese heritage more than their current citizenship which suggests that they should be more loyal to the United States government and their efforts during the Second World War.
However, this is what his decision turned out to be. He still chose not to participate in the war. It is also important to stress that the start of the United States’ participation in the Second World War marked an era of discrimination against the Japanese Iseis and Nisei who were living in the United States and United States occupied territories even though they did not really have any hand in what was happening and the outcomes of the Japanese Emperors tyrannical ambitions to hold and control a large dominion in the Asia and the Pacific.
In the story, we saw how Ichiro along with his other Japanese American friends, and basically every individual who had a Japanese lineage who lived in the United States during the time of the Second World War suffer from the rampant racism and discrimination from other dominant American cultures such as the black and white Americans, and even the United States government. Although it was not clearly and directly mentioned in Okada’s book, he interpreted the racism and discrimination against the Japanese Americans in United States and U.S. occupied territories as a form of punitive demonstrations how the world perceive the aggressive and unjustified actions and war crimes of the Japanese Empire (at least based on the point of view of the Allied countries) during the Second World War.
This can be considered as one of the valid and possible rationalization of the cultural rifts and hardships that complicated the Japanese Americans’ way of life during the Second World War. Some examples of hardships and cultural rifts that they experienced were the fact that those Japanese boys whom the United States government expected to participate in the war against the Japanese empire were put to prison while other same-aged boys who belonged to other dominant cultural groups in the United States during that time often got away with their refusal to volunteer as soldiers in the war. Clearly, the U.S. society and perhaps including the U.S. government put most, if not all, of the blame on the Japanese, including the Japanese Americans, for the loss of lives of not only Americans—especially the ones who died at the defense of Pearl Harbor, and also those who died in battle in other parts of the world.
However, what the people who perpetrated such racist and discriminative acts do not realize is the fact that the people whom they are blaming and punishing did nothing to deserve whatever the type and extent of negative treatment they have been receiving because as far as culture and nationalism is concerned, both the Iseis and the Nisei should already be considered as Americans and not Japanese. Majority of these people hold U.S. citizenship status for so many years already. The Nisei such as Ichiro were born in the U.S. and thus should be considered as natural citizens of the United States. However, based on the reports of how they were treated during the Second World War, it was as if they did not stay in the U.S. for so many years to be considered a citizen or in Ichiro’s case, were not born in the United States.
Argument II: The difference between the Iseis and the Nisei’s perceptions about whether to join the war against the Japanese or not made them divided.
It is important to note that there are a lot of possible ways how the novel, especially the individual scenes or events that were portrayed in it can be interpreted. For one, the way how Ichiro’s other Japanese American friends reacted after they heard of his refusal to participate in the war even after knowing that he would be put to prison as a result of his decision may be interpreted as a form of peer pressure—pressure generated by Ichiro’s Japanese American friends, to persuade him to join the war and do the same thing that they were about to do just so they can escape the terrible feeling of being discriminated in a societal system just because of their race despite the fact of sharing the same citizenship with the aggressors or in their case, the ones who discriminate the Japanese Americans. This kind of pressure was the same one that Ichiro’s mother used to persuade him not to join the United States armed forces and be continuously loyal to the Japanese Emperor.
This may be considered as one of the major reasons why Okada felt that there was a need to explore these tensions.
Another possible reason that Okada may have thought of as a reason why something must be written in relation to the tensions that the Japanese Americans experienced from the U.S. government and other members of dominant cultural groups in the US during that time would be to enlighten non-Japanese Americans how unfair it was for the Japanese Americans to have experienced the racism and discriminations during that time as a form of projective punishment for the things that the Japanese Empire was guilty of. Surely, the novel he wrote was not only intended to be read by Japanese Americans but by non-Japanese Americans as well. Perhaps, the reason why he wrote the novel in English and not in Japanese was really to enlighten the members of other cultural groups and minorities about the hardships and challenges that the Japanese Americans faced in the United States during the Second World War.
Evidence II
There are many instances in the book that can serve as evidences that the opinions of the Iseis and Nisei with regards to being a no-no boy and offering military allegiance to the United States were indeed divided. Ichiro had an encounter with Eto Minato in the book. They were basically old acquaintances. They met each other in the street corner when Eto bragged about him being a part of the U.S. military service already. What started as a friendly exchange developed into something sour when Eto realized that his old friend is a no-no boy. For him, Ichiro committed treason against the United States while for Ichiro, it was just being loyal to their roots—which is Japan, at least based on what his mother made him realize as they grew up. The same basically happened between Ichiro and other people in their neighborhood. In the book, it was stated, “On his way home, Ichiro passes by a group of African American men who have moved into the neighborhood during interment. They taunt him with a chant of “Jap boy, To-ki-yo; Jap boy, To-ki-yo” . Critical Analysis
In an online journal, one author described the type of conflict that Ichiro experienced when he got torn between the decision to not go into the war with the United States’ side and do otherwise as a form of conflict between individual identity and social type. Okada focused on the effects of this conflict on an individual level and progressed later on to show how the creation of this conflict led to more serious forms of problem such as the creation of a division within the Japanese American community. In that particular online journal, the author stated that “The Nisei we encountered in Okada’s No-No Boy remain to splintered to challenge the dominant culture’s notions of identity and citizenship; thus, Ichiro’s state of mind became analogous to that of his entire generation. Even someone like Kenji, the only war veteran we encounter in the text who does not partake in no-no boy persecution, has no consoling words regarding the state of Japanese people in America;
He said “Go Someplace where there is not another Jap within a thousand miles” . Based on this information which basically analyzes Okada’s work and how Ichiro who practically represents majority of the members of the Japanese American community in the United States during the time of the Second World War, majority of them have decided not to join the war despite the fact that they consider themselves as American citizens because they already got forced to think that they were not really Americans but Japanese as a result of the continuously racist and discriminative treatment against them perpetrated by members of other cultural groups in the US.
Conclusions
So, in a nutshell, they should not be blamed, in any way, for the decisions that they have made because at some point, they were only forced to do what they thought was right. In Ichiro’s face, he may have asked himself why he would help and volunteer to possibly die and be disabled for a country who does not even know how to fairly recognize him as a rightful citizen just because of his previous and already severed relation to another country which happens to be its war nemesis.
Works Cited
Delgado, F. "Neither Japanese Nor American: Identity and Citizenship in John Okada's No-No Boy." Trespassing Journal (2012): 01.
Okada, J. "No-No Boy." Seattle: University of Washington Press (1976): 15-16.
