BACK STORY I-
George Takei, the legendary actor from the original STAR TREK television series, was recently on THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT. He was peddling his new children's book, about his experience in an internment camp in Arkansas, with fellow Japanese Americans, during World War II.
He railed against the racism of World War II Americans, just attacked by the Imperial Japanese Navy at Pearl Harbor. Takei said he could not understand how America could be so cruel as to intern Japanese Americans as a consequence of that attack.
Colbert, in self righteous agreement stayed quiet. Obviously, Mr. Colbert does not know, or has never talked to a World War II veteran. He just sat quietly, as Takei trashed a generation, engaged in an existential war, not of their choosing.
In the old days of television; before television started lecturing versus entertaining or informing, Colbert would have had a World War II vet on( there are some, a few left), sitting next to Takei, explaining how the internment happened.
This Blogger has known World War II veterans; his brother fought the Imperial Japanese on Saipan, killing a sniper.
His Security chief, when this Blogger was working for the Defense Establishment, was a Navy veteran who fought the Imperial Japanese Navy at Okinawa.
They understood why innocent Japanese Americans were interned. The reason may have been wrong; but it had validity in an existential war.
BACKSTORY II-
On his first day at the University of Southern California, this Blogger was cowering in the inner bowels of the Library, hiding from a murder of Mormon recruiters seeking to proselytize Freshmen. There he met his first college friend, Marc. Marc was a Sansei, a Third Generation Japanese-American. He was born in an internment camp. In the wake of Pearl harbor, President Roosevelt had signed Executive Order 9066, placing Nisei(Japanese Americans whose parents had immigrated to America) into internment camps, which is an euphemism for concentration camps.
Marc had two children; one of whom became a respected and famous Asian-American actor. He gave a marvelous performance in the World Premiere of the play NO-NO BOY, based on the book of the same title. This Blogger attended that World Premiere.
BACK STORY III-
What is a NO-NO BOY?
After Imperial Japan attacked American naval forces at Pearl Harbor, the American Government declared all Japanese Americans 4-C, enemy aliens. Japanese Americans were denied entry into the American Military.
However, after seeing the military prowess of Imperial Japanese forces, the American Government, in a stroke of American genius, decided to recruit Nisei into the American Army, to fight the Nazi Germans.
So, while their parents, wives, children, and sweethearts were confined in camps, the American government asked the interned Nisei men to volunteer to fight for the government; which had done the cruelty, American Genius at its finest.
The War Relocation Authority(WRA) created a litmus test to test the loyalty of the Nisei.
On the test, there were two questions, Question 27 and Question 28.
“Question 27 asked if an individual would be willing to serve as a combat soldier, nurse, or in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps. ….
Question 28 was a two part question with one answer: "Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States... and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, to any other foreign government, power or organization?"
Some Japanese Nisei answered NO-NO to both questions; they became NO-NO BOYS.
BACK STORY IV-
There was a time, a brief time, when this Blogger had exclusive knowledge to a defense project no one else in the Republic knew. He was assigned a body guard, Bob. Bob was a Hoosier. After Pearl Harbor he had joined the Navy to fight the perfidious Japanese.
During the war, he had served on the FLEET THAT CAME TO STAY, the American fleet which took Okinawa from the Japanese Empire, after surviving innumerable, daily attacks by Imperial kamikaze pilots(suicide pilots).
After the war, he became a Vice cop on the Culver City Police Department; the film studio MGM, was located in Culver City. MGM was at the height of its powers. As a Vice cop,he knew everything seedy about the MGM stars. He retired from the Culver City Police Force a wealthy man.
He then worked for the Defense Establishment.
At the time, this Blogger assumed that he was assigned a bodyguard, so that the bodyguard would take the bullet meant for the Blogger. However, at Bob’s Retirement Party, he informed this Blogger, with a Cheshire cat grin, that his real assignment was to kill the Blogger in case he was being kidnapped.
Bob and his wife, D, were bona fide American racists. They had two strapping sons, sandy haired, blue eyed sons. Both sons married Mexican women.
At the last wedding, as the son danced with his Mexican wife, who could have stepped out of a Mayan relief, this Blogger sidled over to Bob and whispered into his ear: “It is tough to be a racist huh?”
Bob, in response, bestowed on this Blogger, the greatest smile he had ever received, and hugged him.
Bob’s wife died within a year of the last wedding; it is tough to be a racist.
BACK STORY V-
The Nisei, who volunteered to fight, were placed in a segregated unit, the 442nd Infantry Regiment. The 442nd became the most decorated unit in American Military History; its motto was “GO FOR BROKE.”
The 442nd earned over 18,000 awards, including over 9,486 Purple Hearts, 4,000 Bronze Stars, eight Presidential Citations, and 21 Medals of Honor.
Its finest moment was one of the most ironic moments in American History. It was asked to do the impossible, save the Lost Battalion. The Lost Battalion was a group of Texan National Guardsmen cut off by the German Army; all other attempts to save them had failed.
The Lost Battalion was an all white unit, probably over stuffed with racists. Amid dense fog, with visibility no more than twenty feet, the Nisei did it. In hand to hand combat they saved the racists.
In the final attack, the Nisei rose, yelled BANZAI and charged. The Germans broke.
It is only fitting that the 442nd had to report to a General who was a racist and a vainglorious fool. General Dahlquist considered the 442nd cannon fodder, expendable, the World War II version of the Irish Brigade.
He was also noted for placing the son of author, Nobel Laureate Sinclair Lewis, Wells Lewis, in an untenable position which got him killed. He made Lewis stand in the open while giving him an order.
Dahlquist ordered the 442nd to charge with his men up a hill toward the enemy, who were dug in and well supplied. The Nisei officer, Ohata considered the order a certain suicide mission. Despite the threat of court martial and demotion he refused, insisting that the men would be better off attacking the position "their own way." Ohata did it the Nisei way; he won a Medal of Honor.
“ General Dahlquist ordered the entire 442nd to stand in formation for a recognition and award ceremony. Of the 400 men originally assigned, only eighteen surviving members of K Company and eight of I Company turned out. Upon reviewing the meager assemblage Dahlquist became irritated, ignorant of the sacrifices that the unit had made in serving his orders. He demanded of Colonel Miller, "I want all your men to stand for this formation." Miller responded simply, "That's all of K company left, sir."
Some time later, General Dahlquist arrived as part of a review. When he recognized Colonel Singles, who commanded the battalion of which the 442nd was a part; he approached him and offered the colonel his hand saying, "Let bygones be bygones. It's all water under the bridge, isn't it?" In the presence of the entire III Corps, Colonel Singles continued to salute General Dahlquist but refused to take Dahlquist's hand.”
BACK STORY VI-
The play NO-NO BOY is based on the first great novel of Asian-American Literature, by John Okada. The book is also titled NO-NO BOY. The play was written by Ken Narasaki. The play had its World Premiere at the Miles Memorial Playhouse in Santa Monica on March 26, 2010.
This Blogger was in attendance to see Marc’s son, who was one of the stars of the play. Knowing he was going to see the play, this Blogger tracked down the novel, and read it.
The play was a seminal social event for the Japanese American community; some women even showed up in kimonos.
The play and books are set in post World War II Seattle; as a NO-NO BOY, ICHIRO, tries to reenter American society. He did not sign the oath of allegiance, and declined to serve because he thought that asking him to do those things were both unconstitutional and an affront to his dignity.
The Japanese American women in kimonos reminded this Blogger of the protagonist’s, ICHIRO’s mother in the book. She has stayed loyal to Japan during the war, never believing that the Emperor has lost the war. She waits for Japanese warships to arrive in Seattle to teach the bigoted Americans a lesson.
The play was powerful, made more powerful by the Japanese American actors pouring every measure of themselves into their performances.
The novel is both powerful and brutal.
Narasaki, in his Millennial way, changed Okada’s bleak ending.
“….. the end of the original novel, Ichiro is walking down a street alone and conflicted, having just seen Freddie, a fellow No-No Boy, die in a car crash while fleeing from a fight with a Nisei veteran. The documentary director Frank Abe describes: "Instead, after a brief knife fight, Freddie escapes. Ichiro goes out dancing — a scene from earlier in the book, with Emi the abandoned wife...Ichiro and Emi kiss. They are going to live happily ever after, doggone it. It's a theatrical moment. It's probably very moving in performance. It's also schmaltz. And It's very wrong." Frank Chin , whose afterword was printed in subsequent editions of "No-No Boy" after having helped republish the novel following Okada's death, was also critical of the rewrite. "If you don't like Okada, stay out of his bathroom, bedroom, stay out of his house, get out of his f****** book. Just leave it alone.".
BACK STORY VII-
Okada was not a NO-NO BOY; he had served. . “The novel was published in 1957 and remained obscure until much later. He died prematurely at age 47 in 1971. A few years later, two young Asian American men heard of Okada and his novel, and resolved to revive interest in the novel. With the cooperation of Okada's widow, they had it republished in 1976, and there was a second printing in 1977.”
Born in 1923 in Seattle, John Okada was a student at the University of Washington when he and his family were sent to an internment center in Minidoka, Idaho. Okada voluntarily enlisted, becoming a radio signal interceptor for reconnaissance missions over the Japanese coast and eventually serving among United States occupation forces in Japan.
He later earned a master’s degree from Teachers College at Columbia University. He and his wife settled in Detroit, where he found work as a librarian and worked on “No-No Boy.”
The novel centers on Ichiro Yamada, who is sent to an internment camp and then to prison after he refuses to be drafted into the United States military during World War II. According to Okada’s biographer, Frank Abe, Okada based the character on a friend who was sent to prison for refusing the draft. …After World War II, Ichiro Yamada, a Japanese American male and former student at the University of Washington, returns home in 1946 to a Japanese enclave in Seattle, Washington. He has spent two years in an American internment camp for Japanese Americans and two years in federal prison for refusing to fight for the U.S. in World War II. Now home, Ichiro struggles with his parents for embracing American customs and values, and he struggles to maintain a relationship with his brother, Taro. Also, Ichiro faces ostracism from the Japanese American community for refusing to join the U.S. military and fight Japan when many in his community did. Despite his struggles with his family and some members of the community, Ichiro maintains a friendship with Kenji, a Japanese American who fought for the U.S. and badly injured one of his legs. Kenji introduces Ichiro to Emi whose husband re-enlisted and remained in Germany after the war…..Perceived as disloyal to the U.S. but not fully Japanese, Ichiro struggles to find his path…..”
BACK STORY VIII-
This Blogger and Bob were in a hotel room, waiting to interview a South African composites engineer, when the film MIDWAY, about the World War II naval battle came on. One of the sub plots was about the internment of Japanese Americans.
This Blogger asked Bob did he feel any guilt on how badly America treated Japanese- Americans during World War II.
He responded that he always wanted to be in the navy, especially after Japan’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. He said he and forty other Hoosiers took the same train out to San Diego for training. On the train, they discussed what they were going to do with their first leave, go to Tijuana, Mexico to the brothels? Or go to Los Angeles and kill Japs?
They voted to go to Los Angeles and kill them some Japs.
It was Bob’s firm opinion that if the Nisei had not been interned there would have been mass lynchings of Japanese; which he figured the Hoosiers could get away with because of the hatred for Japanese in the country.
BACK STORY IX-
The novel, NO-NO Boy is back in the news.
“Widely recognized as the first Japanese American novel, John Okada’s “No-No Boy,” about a Japanese American man struggling to find his place in the U.S. and in his community in the years after WWII, is a historic work of literature…..
A new edition of “No-No Boy,” published by Penguin Classics in May in honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, has recently brought the book’s complicated publication history into the spotlight and has raised questions regarding its ownership.
On May 31, University of Washington professor Shawn Wong took to Facebook to call out the publisher in a post that claimed he helped register the copyright of “No-No Boy” on behalf of Okada’s widow, Dorothy Okada, when publishing a 1976 edition of the novel. The post included a photo of the U.S. copyright.
Penguin says according to its research, “No-No Boy” is in the public domain in the United States.
“We fully investigate the copyright status of any work that is going into our classics program,” Penguin’s Yuki Hirose, VP, associate general counsel, said in a statement. “According to U.S. Copyright Office records, the 1957 edition was never registered and therefore is not afforded copyright protection in the U.S.”
….When the novel was initially published in 1957, it was rejected by a Japanese American community that was still reeling from the social upheaval caused by internment and sensitive to how the community was portrayed. It wasn’t until the 1970s that Okada’s book was rediscovered thanks to a group of Asian American writers looking to shed light on forgotten and neglected Asian American works.
In 1971, “My friends and I found a used copy of ‘No-No Boy’ for 50 cents at a used book store,” Wong told The Times. “No one knew anything about it. Nobody had ever heard about it.”…. Wong and his friends sought out Okada to interview him about the book, only to discover the Japanese American author had died of a heart attack just months before, his book still lost in obscurity.
Because of this, Wong, Jeffery Paul Chan, Frank Chin and Lawson Fusao Inada tried to bring the book into the limelight. And when they could not find a publisher willing to reissue “No-No Boy” when it went out of print, they worked to publish it themselves under the Combined Asian-American Resources Project banner in 1976.
In an interview, Wong explained that the only reason CARP was able to pay for the cost of printing was because all 3,000 copies of the first printing sold out through preorders by mail, thanks to a column in The Pacific Citizen, a Japanese American newspaper. Ninety% of these buyers were Japanese American, according to Wong.
The publishing rights, Wong says, were transferred in 1979 to the University of Washington Press, which has sold 157,000 copies of the book over the last 40 years and has paid royalties to the Okada family. “No-No Boy” has not gone out of print since 1976.
“Penguin’s edition not only tramples on my copyright for the Okadas but also sidesteps paying royalties to the Okadas because they claim the book is in the public domain, which is so, so morally wrong,” said Wong.
Penguin denies Wong’s claim. “The only copyright registration on file with the Copyright Office related to ‘No-No Boy’ is for the 1976 introduction by Lawson Fusao Inada, which we did not reproduce in our edition,” said Hirose…..
…..Only the U.S. publishing rights are in question. According to Wong and Abe, UW Press owns the worldwide publishing rights and all other media rights…..For Wong and other members of the Asian American community, the pushback is not just about whether Penguin had legal clearance to publish a new edition of the book.
Wong says the publication history behind “No-No Boy” is an important part of Asian American history and that Penguin has disregarded that part of its legacy. He also is disappointed that the publisher had not consulted Okada’s family before releasing its edition.
“Whether or not the largest publisher in the U.S. has a legal right to now bring out an unauthorized edition of ‘No-No Boy,’ you can judge for yourself whether it has a moral right,” wrote Abe in a blog post about the situation….NEW YORK TIMES.”
BACK STORY X-
This Blogger was invited to a discussion by Japanese Americans about the Internment.
At the end of the discussion, a sweet Japanese girl, no more than a teenager, stood up and asked: “How could Roosevelt and Americans be so cruel to us?”
This Blogger almost burst out laughing; when has America not shown itself capable of Roman Cruelty. America has been cruel to Native Americans, Africans, white indentured servants, people who lost the Revolutionary war, German immigrants(Hoodoo war), Chinese railroad builders, sheepherders, Mexicans, miners, squatters, union organizers, sodbusters, and Sinclair Lewis’ son.
So this Blogger spoke up.
“All great nations are built on cruelty…..my friends, I think Roosevelt was not only a great warlord, but a good man. I think he became a good man when he caught polio at 39, and had to fight his way through that. Now, why would a good man do an evil deed? War?”
This Blogger told them what Bob had related; how his all-American friends wanted to come to California and kill innocent Japanese. The issues in life are not always binary, good versus evil; sometimes one must do an evil deed to forestall a deed or deeds more evil, like interning innocent Japanese to keep them safe from kill crazy Americans.”
BACKSTORY XI-
Mr. Takei is a formidable actor, but naive, misguided and misinformed about the American character during World War II. The internments saved Japanese Americans from mass pogroms and lynchings. And there would have been lynchings....Germans in America were lynched during World War I. The American character.
BACKSTORY XII-
If one intends to buy the book, NO-NO BOY, please buy it from the University of Washington press, so that Mr. Okada’s widow can get some compensation.
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