Michelle: No-No Boy

Ichiro has just returned home after two years in prison because he resisted the draft and decided not to fight for America. He feels he does not know who he is because be blames his mother for the decision she made because she is Japanese and is very loyal to her country and has taught Ichiro that he must be too and not fight against his own people. His anger for her grows with every moment he sees her because she does not accept and believe the fact that America won the war and Japan lost. Two years in prison has created a war within Ichiro because he does not know whether he is American because he refused to fight for America, or whether he is Japanese because he did not fight and is not loyal to a country in which he has never been in. Although his mother is very proud of him because he has brought no shame to the family unlike many other Japanese boys his age who have come back in their army suits or who died in the war and whose families are grieving their death, he does not know if he did the right thing since it seemed so wrong in society to be a no-no boy. He is a product of his parents and as a result he is nothing and nobody. “It was to please her, he said to himself with teeth clamped together to imprison the wild, meaningless, despairing cry which was forever straining inside of him”(pg 12). Ichiro is not happy to be back and does not like being reminded of what he did. He shows no affection toward his parents and no respect towards his father. His brother Taro is not surprised or not even relieved that his brother is home. Ichiro soon learns that Taro wants to join the army because he wants to fix the wrong that Ichiro has made, the wrong that Taro now feels he must carry on his shoulders and that it is up to him to set right. With no help or comfort to the way he is feeling, his mother decides to take him to their family friends to show them her pride for her son. They went to Kumasaka’s and Ashida’s. Ashida-san and his mother are on the same page believing that Japan has won the war and they agree that Japanese Americans should not have fought against their own country. Their conversation consisted of talking about Mr. Watanabe’s son and how it is a disgrace to be associated with them now, as “Ichiro’s mother looked at him with a look which said I am Japanese and you are my son and have conducted yourself as a Japanese and I know no shame such as other parents do because their sons were not really their sons or they would not have fought against their own people”(pg 23). At the Kumasaka’s the Yamada’s learn that Bobbie Kumasaka did not make it home from the war. Jun, a friend of Bobbie’s explained how Bobbie was killed and how Japan lost, meanwhile Ichiro’s mother stubbornly walked out of the house without a word because the Kumasaka’s believe that America has won the war and because their son had joined the army. Ichiro does not know what was the right thing to do, was it to join the army and be American? Don’t attack his own people and be Japanese? Whatever side he took, he could not win. All he knows now is that his decision seemed to have cost him who he is and that things won’t be like they were before, “it was the way he felt, stripped of dignity, respect, purpose, honor, all the things which added up to schooling and marriage and family and work and happiness”(pg 12).

Do you think that Ichiro hated his mother this much before the war ever occurred? Was it prison that ignited this unforgiving hatred?