Asian American Studies Commons^™

Streets Of Despair And Blocks Of Hope In John Okada’S No-No Boy, Amy Gracia

Undergraduate Review

No-No Boy by John Okada is the first novel published by an Asian American author. Okada uses a fictional character, Ichiro, to explore the emotional struggles of the young Japanese American men and women who were interned and then imprisoned by answering “no” to the two loyalty questions of whether they would fight against and renounce Japan during WWII, (hence the name “no-no boy”). It is a story of the guilt and anguish of a no-no boy as he struggles to find his identity upon returning home from prison. Similar to the Victorian’s novelist’s use of light to frame their …