Japanese Internment In No-No Boy

After the attack on the Pearl Harbor in 1941, a surprise military strike by the Japanese Navy air service, United States was thrilled and it provoked World War II. Two months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, U.S. President FDR ordered all Japanese-Americans regardless of their loyalty or citizenship, to evacuate the West Coast. This resulted over 127,000 people of Japanese descent relocate across the country in the Japanese Internment camps. Many of them were American Citizens but their crime was being of Japanese ancestry. They were forced to evacuate their homes and leave their jobs and in some cases family members were separated and put into different internment camps. There were ten internment camps were placed in “California, Idaho,

In the novel No-No Boy, the author says “It’s because we’re American and because we’re Japanese and sometimes the two don’t mix. It’s alright to be German and American or Italian and American or Russian and American but, as things turn out, it wasn’t all right to be Japanese and American. You had to be one or the other”(Okada). This quote shows that the Japanese-American were treated very differently more like in a racist way. He also talks about why many Japanese moved to America. For example, “All she wanted from America for her sons was an education, learning and knowledge which would make them better men in Japan”. “I came to America to become a rich man so that I could go back to the village in Japan and be somebody”. These quotes shows that the identity of Japanese living in America was not that they wanted to destroy United States’ economy but trying to live a better life for themselves and their children. According to the Atomic Heritage Foundation, “In the relocation camps, Japanese Americans adhered to strict rules and curfews. The relocation camps did offer education programs and some employment opportunities, and Japanese Americans also organized to create Japanese language classes and other programming to maintain their culture. Famously, in Tule Lake Camp, a strong self-identification with the Japanese culture led to a creation of a pro-Japan group that later rioted and had its

They were in the internment camps with the Japanese American people. According to Atomic Heritage Foundation, “The Japanese Americans in the internment camps had more legal rights than those in the relocation camps. In the WRA relocation camps, they were only subject to Executive Order 9066. In the internment camp, the Geneva Convention guaranteed the rights of “enemy Japanese aliens” as POWs”. A lot of Japanese people were so upset that they regretted for coming to America. In the novel, No-No Boy, it says, “It was a mistake to leave Japan and to come to America and to have two sons and it was a mistake to think that you could keep us completely Japanese in a country such as America". America was like a better future for the Japanese people, but after the bombing of Pearl Harbor their identity was affected the most just for a single reason of being Japanese or from Japanese descent. However, Japanese people loved America and they were loyal to the country United States, but they were not to trusted because they were Japanese. For example, “ There was confusion, but, underneath it, a conviction that he loved America and would fight and die for it because he did not wish to live anyplace else" (Okada). This shows that Japanese-American people loved this country very much and would die for the country. However, they were never trusted by the United State’s government and were put in