Last week I finished reading No-No Boy, by John Okada. First and foremost the work is a historical fiction written by a Nisei, or first-generation Japanese-American, set in the time shortly following WWII. Okada's words paint a generally sad, foggy picture of a young Nisei named Ichiro who has returned home after a two-year prison sentence for refusing to fight in the war against the Japanese. What I found most disheartening about his refusal a là Muhammad Ali was not his punishment but that he went against his own heart's belief, that America is a place worth fighting for. Okada gives voice to his own American military experience as the story encompasses numerous situations that war has affected the country and its leader's treatment of Japanese in America, most of which are obviously unfortunate. Ichiro spends the entirety of the story brooding his cowardice and wishing his family were more Americanized. By not fighting, we learn that he appeased his mother who further pisses him off: she's stuck on the crazy notion that Japan won the war. To make matters worse, his father passively watches his younger brother abandon the family to join the army himself, perhaps because of Ichiro's own omission. Ichiro's stubborn, mostly self-inflicted depression helps him to ignore (perhaps he is unable to perceive) hope even when it kisses him on the mouth (Emi, the "widow" of a freedom fighter) or pledges its friendship (Kenji, his dying war vet companion). Yet Okada constantly, unfailingly presents hope through Ichiro's encounters with those whose hearts have also been war-wounded. Through this fuzzy mass of despair in Ichiro's life opportunities remain abundant and a future lies apace; as flawed a state America is, the spirit of fairness persists for those who would wholeheartedly seek and preserve it. Just as Ichiro is neither Japanese nor American, this book is both depressing and inspiring.
