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Title: No-No Boy by John Okada, Lawson Fusao Inada, Frank Chin ISBN: 0-295-95525-2 Publisher: University of Washington Press Pub. Date: December, 1980 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.89 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.32 (25 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Asian American literature at its best
Comment: John Okada's novel is one of the pioneering works of a growing field of American literature that shares the unique experiences of a group mostly neglected by mainstream America: Asian Americans. This category of literature, known as Asian American literature, seeks to expose the difficulty of finding identity that these Americans have faced because they don't fit in either the mainstream Caucasian American identity or the "model minority" (i.e. African American) identity that has been so prevalent in America, both past and present.
This story takes place during World War II: a terrible time for Japanese Americans, the subjects of this story. It shares the difficulty that a young Japanese American man named Ichiro faced when choosing not to fight for America, the country he always called his home. The two years in prison he spent for rejecting the draft was not nearly as painful as the difficulty of defining himself as an American. America is the country that, on one hand, is his home by birth and residence and, on the other hand, has punished his ethnic group via internment based solely on a distant place of origin. On his journey to find his identity he comes upon many characters, both Japanese Americans and others, that come to shape his perception of what it means to be an American. "No-No Boy" is a magnificent piece of Asian American literature.
Rating: 5
Summary: A novel that should be taught in schools more often!
Comment: In my AP English Literature class, I had a choice of reading any novel of "literary merit" I wanted, and to complete a 25 page analysis of the novel. Of the four books I analyzed in this way this year, No-No Boy was by far my favorite. I am caucasian, yet have always been interested in the dark side of America's role in World War II - the Japanese internment camps. This book is a vivid portrayal of one young man's suffering due to his decision not to swear loyalty to a country that had foresaken his rights as a citizen, and the consequences that result from this decision. Okada deals with a very touchy subject in this novel, for both the white and Japanese-American communities. Ichiro's self-inflicted punishment helps the reader to realize just how awful this experience was for the real No-no boys. This realistic portrayal is rather ironic, since Okada himself chose to serve the United States loyally in the army during World War II. Perhaps this novel was written from the side of him that related more to his Japanese roots than to his newfound American identity, and the guilt he himself must have carried when serving in the Pacific, telling Japanese to surrender in their own language. Okada also deals with a seemingly untouchable issue - that of the discrimination the Japanese-Americans themselves practiced toward other U.S. citizens, although they faced discrimination themselves. This adds to the truthfulness of the novel. Perhaps the only disappointing aspect to the novel is the all-American, happy ending that seems a little too contrived, although it must have been necessary for Okada to write the novel this way in order to gain any readers, because the novel's subject was so controversial at the time it was written. This novel should be taught in high schools and universities across the country, in American literature courses, and not just Asian-American literature courses. Now, multicultural education movements have succeeded in gaining the teaching of more women and African-American writers' novel, but Asian-American literature has still been neglected. The tolerance and understanding that students will gain from reading this novel should be evident immediately after one has read No-No Boy, even though the novel is enjoyable and is hardly preachy-sounding.
Rating: 5
Summary: Great weaving of difficult and painful themes - & great read
Comment: This book is worthwhile simply as a great story and enjoyable read. That makes the subject matter even more impressive, because it tackles several intertwined themes on a dark period in U.S. history for many reasons. First, it humanizes ordinary Japanese-Americans who were swept up in the WWII hysteria and had their lives shattered. You follow a young man as he struggles witht the difficult decision of whether to enlist in the U.S. army, which would spare him internment in the concentration camps out West. It's a lose-lose situation, because either choice is painful and has harsh consequences.
An interesting side theme that often doesn't get discussed is the portrayal of the fiercely pro-Japanese mother who never wavers in her belief that Japanese warships will appear on the West Coast and liberate her family and the rest of her Japanese brethren. This is interesting because while it certainly doesn't soften what the U.S. did to those groups during the war, it does help explain somewhat one of the justifications used to whip people up into an anti-Japanese frenzy. The Japanese residents of the West Coast were unlike European immigrant communities on the East Coast in that many Japanese desperately longed to return home and saw living in the U.S. as a temporary solution to economic woes. Coupled with the fact that in the early part of the war the U.S. was in real danger of losing to the Japanese and facing attacks on the West Coast, the mistrust and resentment of Japanese living here was much greater than the feelings toward German and Italian immigrants at the time. Again it doesn't justify U.S. actions during the span of this book, but neither do blanket labels of racism get to the root causes of why these camps were established.
Overall, this is a powerful book that could be enjoyed as a fictionalized story or a non-fiction history.
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Title: The Woman Warrior : Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts by MAXINE HONG KINGSTON ISBN: 0679721886 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 23 April, 1989 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: America Is in the Heart: A Personal History (Washington Paperbacks, Wp-68) by Carlos Bulosan, Carey McWilliams ISBN: 029595289X Publisher: University of Washington Press Pub. Date: June, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Nisei Daughter by Monica Itoi Sone, S. Frank Miyamoto ISBN: 0295956887 Publisher: University of Washington Press Pub. Date: June, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.89 |
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Title: M Butterfly by David Henry Hwang ISBN: 0452272599 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: February, 1994 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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Title: Obasan by Joy Kogawa ISBN: 0385468865 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 27 December, 1993 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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