ERIC Number: EJ1196692
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2018-Dec
Pages: 17
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0045-6713
EISSN: N/A
Reading Civil Disobedience, Disaffection, and Racialized Trauma in John Okada's "No-No Boy": Lessons Learned 75 Years after Executive Order 9066
Children's Literature in Education, v49 n4 p413-429 Dec 2018
The year 2017 will mark the 75th anniversary when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 or EO 9066 on February 19, 1942. EO 9066 led to the mass incarceration of approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans into ten racially segregated concentration camps throughout the U.S. This article discusses the educational and literary value of Japanese American author John Okada's classic novel "No-No Boy" (1957) with a specific focus on implications for adolescent/young adult readers and teachers of English. Specifically, "No-No Boy," as a classic oppositional text, defies the master narrative that Japanese Americans blindly accepted their fate during World War II and were thus able to rapidly assimilate into an accepting and benevolent White-dominated society after the war. Instead, Okada offers a somber critique of the World War II incarceration including how life in detainment destroyed the Japanese American community and families. Implications are provided including highlighting multiple avenues for students and teachers to critically explore the connections between America's racially contested past and present around the themes of civil disobedience, disaffection, and racialized trauma.
Descriptors: Novels, Adolescent Literature, Japanese Americans, United States Literature, War, World History, Civil Disobedience, Trauma, Racial Discrimination, United States History
Springer. Available from: Springer Nature. 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-348-4505; e-mail: customerservice@springernature.com; Web site: https://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2123/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A