Explore Videos

One of the University of Washington Press’ most reprinted novels, No-No Boy is about a young Japanese man's return to Seattle after two years in an American concentration camp and two years in a federal penitentiary for refusing to be drafted into the Army. The protagonist, Ichiro Yamada, returns home forever changed by racism, war, and a community divided over the actions of resisters such as himself. Author John Okada died in obscurity, but the book went on to become a staple in the literary canon of Asian America literature.

In Search of No-No Boy brings together interviews with Okada’s family and friends, archival footage, interviews with survivors, and read-aloud portions of the book to explore the complexities of post World War II Japanese America, a community grappling with re-integrating into a society that unjustly branded them as disloyal and untrustworthy while also struggling to reconcile their individual feelings of justice and loyalty in the face of racism and definitions of being an American.