No-No Boy and Perpetual Foreignness

Kim Fong

As briefly discussed in class this past Thursday, the racism most prevalent in No-No Boy existed within the Japanese community. Within the Japanese American community, as presented in this novel, the no-no boys were subjected to discrimination and were looked down on by the other members of the community who identified as more American and/or served in the war. This presentation of racism is not one that immediately comes to mind when discussing the issue. In a similar vein, I felt that another Asian American issue that emerged was the concept of the “perpetual foreigner,” though not necessarily in the traditional sense.

Traditionally, this concept is based on the idea that, in the dominant culture of America, Asian Americans are often thought to have recently immigrated to the United States. This mindset serves as an obstacle for American citizens of Asian descent—because of how they looked, they were often not considered to be an American citizen. Because they were not automatically considered to be citizens in the eyes of other Americans, Japanese Americans had to work harder to be accepted and to prove themselves. As one no-no boy stated: “Maybe I look Japanese and my father and mother and brothers and sisters look Japanese, but we’re better Americans than the regular ones because that’s the way it has to be when one looks Japanese but is a really good American” (Okada, 33). This individual realized that he had to work harder to be American than others, such as European Americans, who already “looked American.”

The concept of the “perpetual foreigner” was also directly addressed in Ichiro’s memories of standing before a judge and refusing to serve in the military. He remembers one of the arguments in which the Japanese individual on trial asked, “how about the Germans and Italians that must be just as questionable as the Japanese or we wouldn’t be fighting Germany and Italy?” (Okada, 31). One of the differences that can be seen between the Japanese and the Germans and the Italians was that Japanese looked different—they looked foreign.

However, the idea of the perpetual foreigner did not only apply to how the United States government viewed those of Asian descent. In No-No Boy, Ichiro felt like a perpetual foreigner, even in his hometown, surrounded by the community in which he grew up. Although the story began when Ichiro returned home to his family, he still “felt like an intruder in a world to which he had no claim” (Okada, 1). His foreignness was further exacerbated when his father gave him directions to the store with a letter in which “[t]he Japanese characters, written simply so that he could read them, covered pages of directions as if he were a foreigner coming to the city for the first time” (Okada, 6). These small indications of not belonging further develop Ichiro’s crisis of identity. Because he saw himself as neither wholly Japanese nor wholly American, Ichiro did not feel as if he belonged to any community. If he could not feel comfortable when surrounded by people he grew up with, how then, would he fit be perceived by other non-Japanese Americans?

As pointed out by E. San Juan, “[p]olitical demagoguery in times of economic crisis can shift the target of scapegoating onto the Japanese, the Korean, or any Asian and thus reactivate the sedimented persona of the recalcitrant, non-English-speaking, shifty-eyed foreigner in our midst” (San Juan, 46). This seems to explain how the “perpetual foreigner” would be an easy target as a scapegoat in the dominant American culture. However, why would the no-no boys be a scapegoat in the Japanese American community? Perhaps they are a reminder to other Japanese Americans of the reason for internment. Or perhaps they serve as a point of comparison that other Japanese Americans could use to further solidify their belongingness in American culture.