John Okada was a Japanese-American writer. Born in Seattle, Washington

Seattle, Washington

Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...

, he was a student at the University of Washington

University of Washington

University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...

 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...

. Okada and his family were interned at Minidoka in 1942. Okada served in the US Air Force during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, and later earned two bachelor's degrees from the University of Washington and a master's degree from Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

. In 1957, Okada completed the manuscript for the novel No-No Boy.
Okada is interred at Evergreen Washelli Memorial Park

Evergreen Washelli Memorial Park

Evergreen Washelli Memorial Park originated in 1885. It is located on both sides of Aurora Avenue in Seattle, Washington, and occupies roughly . It is the largest cemetery in Seattle.-History:...

.

Literary Output

His only finished and published novel, No-No Boy

No-No Boy

No-No Boy is the only novel published by Japanese American writer, John Okada. It deals with the aftermath of the Japanese American internment during World War II. The novel begins as Ichiro Yamada is returning home from prison, and follows him as he struggles to come to terms with his decision of...

, deals with the aftermath of the Japanese-American internment during World War II and how this event divided the Japanese-American population after the war.

In his introduction to the novel, Lawson Fusao Inada

Lawson Fusao Inada

Lawson Fusao Inada is an American poet and was the fifth poet laureate of the U.S. state of Oregon.-Early life:Inada is a third-generation Japanese American...

 writes of meeting Okada's wife, Dorothy, in La Grande, Oregon

La Grande, Oregon

-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 12,327 people, 5,124 households, and 2,982 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,833.5 people per square mile . There were 5,483 housing units at an average density of 1,260.3 per square mile...

 1976:

Dorothy is a truly wonderful person. It hurt to have her tell us that "John would have liked you." It hurt to have her tell us that "you two are the first ones who ever came to see him about his work." It hurt to have her tell us that she recently burned his "other novel about the Issei, which we both researched and which was almost finished." It hurt to have her tell us that "the people I tried to contact about it never answered so when I moved I burned it, because I have him in my heart." [...] You could say John was "ahead of his time," that he was born too early and died too young.

Okada is the namesake of the Asian American ethnic themed dorm at Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

. Okada House is part of the Wilbur Hall Complex.

Critical studies

(from the MLA

Modern Language Association

The Modern Language Association of America is the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature...

 database, March 2008)

1. A Lacanian Reading of No-No Boy
   No-No Boy
   No-No Boy is the only novel published by Japanese American writer, John Okada. It deals with the aftermath of the Japanese American internment during World War II. The novel begins as Ichiro Yamada is returning home from prison, and follows him as he struggles to come to terms with his decision of...
   
   and Obasan
   Obasan
   Obasan is a novel by the Japanese-Canadian author Joy Kogawa. First published by Lester and Orpen Dennys in 1981, it chronicles Canada's internment and persecution of its citizens of Japanese descent during World War II from the perspective of a young child...
   
   : Traumatic Thing and Transformation into Subjects of Jouissance By: Chen, Fu-Jen; Comparatist: Journal of the Southern Comparative Literature Association, 2007 May; 31: 105-29. (journal article)
2. Psychology and Asian American Literature: Application of the Life-Story Model of Identity to No-No Boy
   No-No Boy
   No-No Boy is the only novel published by Japanese American writer, John Okada. It deals with the aftermath of the Japanese American internment during World War II. The novel begins as Ichiro Yamada is returning home from prison, and follows him as he struggles to come to terms with his decision of...
   
   By: Cheung, Floyd; CR: The New Centennial Review, 2006 Fall; 6 (2): 191-214. (journal article)
3. A Passion for the Impossible: Richard Rorty
   Richard Rorty
   Richard McKay Rorty was an American philosopher. He had a long and diverse academic career, including positions as Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton, Kenan Professor of Humanities at the University of Virginia, and Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University...
   
   , John Okada, and James Baldwin
   James Baldwin (writer)
   James Arthur Baldwin was an American novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic.Baldwin's essays, for instance "Notes of a Native Son" , explore palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-20th century America,...
   
    By: Bush, Harold K., Jr.. pp. 171–86 IN: Griesinger, Emily (ed. and introd.); Eaton, Mark (ed.); The Gift of Story: Narrating Hope in a Postmodern World. Waco, TX: Baylor UP; 2006. xii, 391 pp. (book article)
4. Once More, with Feeling: Cold War Masculinity and the Sentiment of Patriotism in John Okada's No-No Boy By: Kim, Daniel Y.; Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts, 2005 Winter; 47 (1): 65-83. (journal article)
5. John Okada By: Pulliam, June. pp. 260–64 IN: Madsen, Deborah L. (ed. and introd.); Asian American Writers. Detroit, MI: Gale; 2005. xxiv, 460 pp. (book article)
6. Two Negations: The Fear of Being Excluded and the Logic of Self-Esteem By: Sakai, Naoki. pp. 159–92 IN: Calichman, Richard F. (ed. and introd.); Contemporary Japanese Thought. New York, NY: Columbia UP; 2005. viii, 309 pp. (book article)
7. Wounded Bodies and the Cold War: Freedom, Materialism, and Revolution in Asian American Literature, 1946-1957 By: Nguyen, Viet Thanh. pp. 158–82 IN: Lawrence, Keith (ed.); Cheung, Floyd (ed.); Recovered Legacies: Authority and Identity in Early Asian American Literature. Philadelphia, PA: Temple UP; 2005. xii, 308 pp. (book article)
8. Suffering Male Bodies: Representations of Dissent and Displacement in the Internment-Themed Narratives of John Okada and Toshio Mori
   Toshio Mori
   Toshio Mori is an American author, best known for being one of the earliest Japanese American writers to publish a book of fiction.-Biography:...
   
    By: Arakawa, Suzanne. pp. 183–206 IN: Lawrence, Keith (ed.); Cheung, Floyd (ed.); Recovered Legacies: Authority and Identity in Early Asian American Literature. Philadelphia, PA: Temple UP; 2005. xii, 308 pp. (book article)
9. 'A Prisoner of Forever': Cognitive Distortions and Depressions in John Okada's No-No Boy By: Storhoff, Gary; Interdisciplinary Literary Studies: A Journal of Criticism and Theory, 2004 Fall; 6 (1): 1-20. (journal article)
10. Two Negations: Fear of Being Excluded and the Logic of Self-Esteem By: Sakai, Naoki; Novel: A Forum on Fiction, 2004 Summer; 37 (3): 229-57. (journal article)
11. English as a Postcolonial Tool By: Eoyang, Eugene Chen; English Today: The International Review of the English Language, 2003 Oct; 19 (4 [76]): 23-29. (journal article)
12. The Mother That Won't Reflect Back: Situating Psychoanalysis and the Japanese Mother in No-No Boy By: Gribben, Bryn; MELUS: The Journal of the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States, 2003 Summer; 28 (2): 31-46. (journal article)
13. Sticky Rice Balls or Lemon Pie: Enjoyment and Ethnic Identities in No-No Boy and Obasan
    Obasan
    Obasan is a novel by the Japanese-Canadian author Joy Kogawa. First published by Lester and Orpen Dennys in 1981, it chronicles Canada's internment and persecution of its citizens of Japanese descent during World War II from the perspective of a young child...
    
    By: Xu, Wenying; Lit: Literature Interpretation Theory, 2002 Jan-Mar; 13 (1): 51-68. (journal article)
14. Not Waving but Drowning: Creativity and Identity in Diaspora
    Diaspora
    A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
    
     Writing By: Lim, Shirley; Studies in the Linguistic Sciences, 2001 Spring; 31 (1): 31-47. (journal article)
15. No-No Boy by John Okada By: Ling, Jinqi. pp. 140–50 IN: Wong, Sau-ling Cynthia (ed. and introd.); Sumida, Stephen H. (ed. and introd.); A Resource Guide to Asian American Literature. New York, NY: Modern Language Association of America; 2001. vi, 345 pp. (book article)
16. Resilient ImagiNations: No-No Boy, Obasan
    Obasan
    Obasan is a novel by the Japanese-Canadian author Joy Kogawa. First published by Lester and Orpen Dennys in 1981, it chronicles Canada's internment and persecution of its citizens of Japanese descent during World War II from the perspective of a young child...
    
    and the Limits of Minority Discourse By: Amoko, Apollo O.; Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature, 2000 Sept; 33 (3): 35-55. (journal article)
17. John Okada (1923–1971) By: Chen, Fu-jen. pp. 281–88 IN: Nelson, Emmanuel S. (ed. and preface); Asian American Novelists: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Westport, CT: Greenwood; 2000. xi, 422 pp. (book article)
18. Shakespeare, Okada, Kingston: The First Generation By: Kehler, Dorothea; Comparatist: Journal of the Southern Comparative Literature Association, 1998 May; 22: 110-22. (journal article)
19. An Issei Woman's Suffering, Silence, and Suicide in John Okada's No-No Boy By: Usui, Masami; Chu-Shikoku Studies in American Literature, 1997 June; 33: 43-61. (journal article)
20. 'Double Consciousness,' Sociological Imagination, and the Asian American Experience By: Wang, Qun; Race, Gender & Class: Asian American Voices, 1997; 4 (3): 88-94. (journal article)
21. 'You Had to Be One or the Other': Oppositions and Reconciliation in John Okada's No-No Boy By: Yogi, Stan; MELUS, 1996 Summer; 21 (2): 63-77. (journal article)
22. Race, Power, and Cultural Politics in John Okada's No-No Boy By: Ling, Jinqi; American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography, 1995 June; 67 (2): 359-81. (journal article)
23. To Belong or Not to Belong: The Liminality of John Okada's No-No Boy By: Yeh, William; Amerasia Journal, 1993; 19 (1): 121-33. (journal article)
24. The Collapse of Difference: Dysfunctional and Inverted Celebrations in John Okada's No-No Boy By: Yogi, Stan; Revue Francaise d'Etudes Americaines, 1992 Aug; 53: 233-44. (journal article)
25. Momotaro
    Momotaro
    is a popular hero from Japanese folklore. His name literally means Peach Tarō; as Tarō is a common Japanese boy's name, it is often translated as Peach Boy...
    
    's Exile: John Okada's No-No Boy By: Sato, Gayle K. Fujita. pp. 239–58 IN: Lim, Shirley Geok-lin (ed. & introd.); Ling, Amy (ed. & introd.); Kim, Elaine H. (fwd.); Reading the Literatures of Asian America. Philadelphia: Temple UP; 1992. xvii, 376 pp. (book article)
26. Discourse and Dislocation: Rhetorical Strategies of Asian-American Exclusion and Confinement By: Palumbo-Liu, David; Lit: Literature Interpretation Theory, 1990 July; 2 (1): 1-7. (journal article)
27. No-No Boy de John Okada (1957): Les Japonais Nisei après la deuxième guerre mondiale et les affres de l'américanisation By: Rigal-Cellard, Bernadette. pp. 89–104 IN: Séminaires 1985. Talence: Centre de Recherches sur l'Amér. Anglophone, Maison des Sciences de l'Homme d'Aquitaine; 1986. 153 pp. (book article)
28. Of Place and Displacement: The Range of Japanese-American Literature By: Inada, Lawson Fusao. pp. 254–265 IN: Baker, Houston A., Jr. (ed. & pref.); Ong, Walter J. (introd.); Three American Literatures: Essays in Chicano, Native American, and Asian-American Literature for Teachers of American Literature. New York: Modern Language Assn. of America; 1982. 265 pp. (book article)
29. After Imprisonment: Ichiro's Search for Redemption in No-No Boy By: McDonald, Dorothy Ritsuko; MELUS, 1979 Fall; 6 (3): 19-26. (journal article)
30. The Vision of America in John Okada's No-No Boy By: Inada, Lawson Fusao; Proceedings of the Comparative Literature Symposium, 1978; 9: 275-87. (journal article)
31. No-No Boy By: Inada, Lawson Fusao. Seattle: Combined Asian-Amer. Resources Project (U of Washington P); 1978. 276 pp. (book)