Shifting Identities: Racial Conflict in No-No Boy Booker Smith College

John Okada’s No-No Boy illustrates the racial conflicts between the Japanese-American community and American popular culture as well as differing views on assimilation among Japanese-Americans themselves. Kenji, who suffers from a fatal wound sustained fighting for the U.S. in World War II, represents a sort of embodiment of the tensions between Japanese and American identity. Kenji is mortally wounded fighting for a country that interned members of his family. However, his return in valor from the war enabled him to reconcile with his father. Their close kinship contrasts starkly with the relationship between older and younger Japanese-Americans that is manifested in the internment camps. Kenji also rejects the projected racism evidenced by some of his Japanese and Chinese-American companions. While Kenji will never live up to his father’s image of the ‘ideal’ American dream, he is relatively content with his position at the crossroads of seemingly divergent identities.

There is a clear distinction between Asian and American identity. Okada recognizes that when a “sweet-looking Chinese girl” (2192) is invited by a white boy to the high school prom, “She has risen in the world, or so she thinks, for it is evident in her...