Order the book through your local bookstore, online, or check your local library for digital and physical loans.
Contextual Links
We recommend perusing these links to get additional context about the book, the author, and the themes of the book. Spoilers ahead, though!
John Okada’s No-No Boy Is a Test of American Character (The Atlantic)
The Uneasy Afterlife of John Okada (Los Angeles Review of Books)
John Okada: The Life and Rediscovered Work of the Author of No-No Boy (video; Japanese American National Museum)
The Unlikely Story Behind Japanese Americans’ Campaign For Reparations (NPR)
Five Years After Trump’s “Muslim Ban” (NPR)
No-No Boy and the Japanese-American Migration to Detroit (Detroit History Podcast)
Discussion Questions
Does Ichiro’s mother’s reaction to WWII mirror how elders in your community view geopolitics from both an American and homeland perspective?
Have abstract policy changes impacted the way you feel about yourself in the US?
This is the first book we’ve read from the 1900s. How do the conversations about intergenerational friction differ from contemporary literature? How do the conversations remain the same?
When do you start to “feel” like you’re part of one national identity over another? How does this spectrum manifest in No-No Boy and personal life?
How do class and race manifest for Japanese Americans in the book?
How does incarceration show up in No-No Boy? Do you spot different forms of incarceration throughout the novel?