Development of Identity Through Japanese American Writing
Development of Identity Through Japanese American Writing
This is the prompt:
The issue of identity in Okada’s No-No Boy is an important and relevant theme of the novel. Okada wrote this novel before there was such a thing as a Japanese American people or Asian American literature, categories that we take for granted in 2021. According to Gordon Hirabayashi, “[Okada] heralded the beginning of an authentic Japanses American literature” (177). Stan Yogi unpacks the political ramifications of such a beginning:
a. Through Ichiro’s journey to re-establish himself as an American, Okada explores the gray area between the oppositions that develop around polarized definitions of “Japanese and “American,” individuality and community, assimilation and cultural maintenance. In the course of the novel, Okada reveals how many of these oppositions are false and how polarized notions that divide the community tend to collapse in upon themselves. (Yogi 64)
Support or refute Stan Yogi’s thoughts on Okada’s writing using evidence from the novel.
