John Kozo Okada was a Japanese American novelist known for his critically acclaimed novel No-No Boy.
13 Facts About John Okada
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John Okada had to interrupt his studies, and he and his family were among thousands of American citizens interned at Minidoka War Relocation Center in 1942 as a result of Executive Order 9066.
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John Okada was taken out of the internment camp and recruited to the United States Army Air Forces after he completed a loyalty questionnaire which asked him to "forswear allegiance" to the Emperor of Japan.
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John Okada served as a Japanese translator, overflying Japanese forces in the Pacific and translating intercepted Japanese communications.
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In 1956, John Okada completed the manuscript for his novel No-No Boy, which was published the following year.
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John Okada died of a heart attack on February 20,1971, at the age of 47.
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John Okada was survived by his wife Dorothy, as well as a son and a daughter.
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John Okada is interred at Evergreen Washelli Memorial Park in Seattle.
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John Okada's younger brother Frank John Okada was a noted abstract expressionist painter.
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John Okada's only completed and published novel, No-No Boy deals with the aftermath of the Japanese American internment during World War II, Japanese-American identity, and how this event divided the Japanese American population after the war.
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John Okada explored feelings among Japanese nationals, some of whom still held dreams of a return to Japan, and among their native-born American children, who felt conflicted about their identity but identified with the United States.
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John Okada's novel was rediscovered by some writers from Los Angeles in 1976, who tracked down his wife to meet her and see if she had any of his manuscripts.
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The rediscovered works include a poem that John Okada wrote during the night of the attack on Pearl Harbor entitled "I Must Be Strong," a play about the US occupation of Japan which was produced at the Tryout Theater in 1946, five short stories which were published in the Northwest Times in 1947, and two satirical essays about the military-industrial complex written during his stint as a technical writer at Hughes Aircraft Company between 1958 and 1961.