Loyalty In John Okada's No-No Boy

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John Okada’s No- No Boy, Ichiro Yamada returns home after spending 2 years in jail for being a “no- no boy” and refusing the draft. He returns with animosity towards himself and his family for his loyalty towards Japan, causing him to question throughout the book why he was loyal to Japan. Also, in Toshio Mori’s Yokohama, California, the short story of Tomorrow is Coming, Children is of a grandmother telling her grandchildren of her immigrant experience while they are in an internment camp as “alien residents” even though they retain US citizenship. Also, in the short story Tomorrow and Today, Hatsuye is in love with Clark Gable are both works illustrating the struggles of loyalty to America. In No- No Boy, Ichiro is bitter Through word choice, Ichiro’s …show more content…
As the grandmother is telling her grandchildren of her travel to San Francisco, she creates a façade of promise surrounding the city as she describes it as “the city with enticing food; the city with gold coins; the city with many strange faces and music; the city with great buildings and ships,” (Mori 3). However, this façade was stripped as the grandmother’s travel to America was “rough” and she was “sick almost all the way,” (Mori 4). As the grandmother is describing her first sights of America she describes the “dirty brown hills” and the “houses that jutted out of the ground,” (Mori 5). The irony created by the image of the dirty brown hills and the jutting houses combined with the fanciful tone reveals the stark contrast of what America was believed to be. However, the grandmother’s loyalty towards America never wavered as exemplified in her statements of, “This is San Francisco. My San Francisco,” (Mori 5). The grandmother’s use of the phrase “my San Francisco” reveals a sense of ownership, pride, and unwavering loyalty to America; the grandmother felt she was truly an American and apart of
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