No-no Boy

By John Okada

This book was assigned for my Themes class.   I had never heard of this book before and that was unfortunate because it was the most emotionally impactful novel I have read since A Burning (a book I cannot recommend enough to all my readers). 

This book is post-WWII Seattle, where the interred, incarcerated and serving Japanese are returning to the city they were forced to leave.  Ichiro is referred to as a no-no boy.  He answered no to the loyalty questions after his family was put into an internment camp and he was drafted.  He is not sure why he said no, and this is the journey he begins.  The book explores what it means to be American and the child of immigrant parents.  He was an American citizen, studying engineering at the University of Washington until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. 

While the story is fictional, it is deeply impactful.  Japanese internment is a stain on our history that does not get discussed enough.  Collective trauma for an entire community of people left to pick up the pieces on their own. Each character goes through varying trials and tribulations as they attempt to settle back into a life that is as close to normal as they are going to get.

The writing is unconventional, and I always love a rule breaker, especially when it adds more impact to the story, and in this case, it does. With great storytelling and compelling characters, the reader is pulled into their world. It is important to see life from a different perspective. It is one of the reasons I read, to get a different point-of-view, and perhaps seeing things from someone else’s shoes can assist me as I stumble through life.