No Only Journal Assignment # 1

“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into

Ichiro’s experience with Mrs.Yamada’s extreme Japanese nationalism influences his actions, preventing his sense of belonging within the greater community. After Ichiro comes back from internment, his mother makes Ichiro visit the Kumasakas because “it was customary among the Japanese to pay ceremonious visits to families of close association...particularly...when a member of one of the families...returned from an unusually long separation” (Okada 20). Ichiro doesn’t know, however, that the Kumasakas’ son is dead, and when Ichiro unknowingly asks where the Kumasakas’ son is, Mrs.Kumasaka starts crying. During this time, the narrator says, “there was no awareness of the other mother with a living son who had come to say to her you are with shame and grief because you were not Japanese and thereby killed your son” (29). Mrs.Yamada’s underlying plan of having Ichiro unknowingly asking about the Kumasakas’ dead son reveals the importance she places on extreme Japanese nationalism. Mrs.Yamada feels that Mrs.Kumasaka is “not Japanese” and therefore inadvertently

After a few years of going to church with his family fervently on Sundays, fourteen year old Sam lost his father, which later on would describe as “Only one for passion, a military life” .

Going through an era when the Vietnam War was a smash hit in your town, many high school senior boys would be drafted out if their number was on the list of people. The men drafted had to leave behind their families and aspirations. Tim O’Brien uses different perspectives in The Things They Carried to show if something tragic happens in life, consequently dealing with it may be hard. Moving on will help in the future.

Similarly, the young unnamed soldier holds himself solely accountable for the death of his cherished friend. This boy exhausts himself as he tries to handle the loss by recounting his last memories of Kiowa over and over, frantically searching for the laminated picture of his girlfriend, all the while moving his lips. “Like Jimmy Cross, the boy was explaining to an absent judge. It wasn’t to defend himself. The boy recognized his own guilt and wanted only to lay out

The story begins with the narrator reminiscing about the day his grandfather died. His grandfather delivered a speech that would haunt his young grandson for years to come. The old man said "Son, after I'm gone I want you to keep up the good fight. I never told you, but I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy's country ever since I gave up

Two weeks later he got a letter in the mail, he read the letter is quickly turned into a bad one,he was drafted into the United States Air Force. As he walked inside, it was like there was a boulder on his shoulders. And his wife the bad news, and she cried into his shoulder.Thoughts were racing through his head, what if I die? My wife is expecting, what if my child grows up with no father like me?two weeks later taxi picked him up and drove him to the airport where he would go to train for the U.S. Air

As Joe talked about working in the hospital, he never took his eyes off of his grandson, who was asking the questions, and pleading for the answers. His voice was always firm and steady, until he spoke about the victims of the Battle of the Bulge. Then Joe’s eyes teared up, and his steady voice began to waver. Just talking to Joe, you could almost hear, see and smell what he

When a teenage girl spends years in a Japanese Internment camp, her identity experiences drastic change due to the immense pressure of the encroaching adulthood. Early in the book, the daughter assumed the role of the loving and caring older sister. When the boy was tired on the train, “he laid his head down on his sister’s lap and drifted off to sleep” (Otsuka 30). The same protective nature is seen throughout the entire first half of the book. While at the internment camp, the boy became sick and often coughed; his sister immediately “untied her scarf and shoved it into his hand and told him to hold it over his nose and mouth” (Otsuka 48). As the boy spent more time in the camp, he began having night terrors. When he woke up screaming, “he felt a hand on his shoulder and it was his sister telling him it was all just a bad dream” (Otsuka 57). Whether he was tired, sick, or scared, the boy could always count on his sister to be there for him. However as time progressed, a distance began to separate the once close and dependent siblings. The daughter began to choose eating “all her meals with her friends. Never with the boy or his mother” (Otsuka 92). The boy recounts a moment where “he saw her standing in line at the mess hall in her Panama hat and she hardly seemed to recognize him at all” (Otsuka 92). Comparing the daughter’s relationship to her brother from the beginning to the end of the

The Japanese people are stoic patriotic people. They did come together as a community to assist each other but they suffered through their pain alone. They did not look for sympathy or a shoulder to cry on. Mr. Tanimoto wrote in a letter describing how some Japanese died without yelling out for help. He wrote, “They died in silence with no grudge, setting their teeth to bear it. All for the country (Hersey, p. 69)!” They were proud people for their country and didn’t want to appear weak. Mr. Tanimoto also wrote in his letter, “Look, I lost my home, my family, and at last bitterly injured. But now I have got my mind to dedicate what I have and to complete the war for our country’s sake (Hersey, p. 69).” Hersey also informs us of thirteen year old girls singing their national anthem while being crushed to death. Not concerned about their well-being but for the love of their beloved country. To know that you’re going to die yet sing something that means so much to you shows heroism. It is as if the thirteen year old girls died for

Page 120-121 “...the young man would not have wanted to be a soldier...try not to grow up too fast.”

No-No Boy is the first novel written by an Asian American and to receive publication in the 1950s. Set in Seattle, Washington in 1946, it tells the story of Ichiro Yamada, a young Japanese American man, returning home to a Japanese enclave Seattle after spending several years in an internment camp and two years in federal prison for refusing to serve in the U.S. Army in the WWII. No-No Boy’s main focus is on Ichiro’s struggles with his mother and himself for not embracing his Japanese heritage until the very end. The novel also depicts the grim reality of choosing Japan over America. This is shown in the Japanese American community through the belittling and harsh treatments Ichiro receives, because he chose not to fight for America when many

Another theme is identity. The grandfather has lost his short-term memory, and it seems like he has lost his “civil” identity along with the memory. During the confession to the grandson he plays a role as a captain or a soldier in the Second World War. The Japanese sat on a raft, and they tried to travel from one shore to another. The two shores symbolize the grandfather’s two identities – his professional identity and his civil identity. The raft is the way for the grandfather to switch between his identities, and by shooting the Japanese and sinking the raft, he destroys his only way of getting back to his real and civil identity. And that is why he plays a role as a captain and why he is still living in the past.

I asked Toby about his experience in the war. He shut his eyes and told me that he did not care to go into detail about it; it was too brutal. I was silent for a moment, thinking he might mention just a little bit. After a few seconds, Toby let out a sigh and quietly said, “War was war. I watched friends die and enemies live, but at the end of the day, I am proud to say I served my country. I did something for the good of America.” To make the conversation lighter, I asked him about one of his favorite memories. I watched Toby’s face instantly soften and, as a smile spread across his face, he told me about his wife. Since Toby was able to recall this information from his past, he shows that he has a good long-term

“We’ll see you again,” my father said, attempting to smile, “When the war is over.” I believed him when he said that. He seemed so sure of himself, so how could I not believe him. Unfortunately, at the time, I hadn’t known all the risks and dangers that came with war, and I hadn’t realized that the war was getting worse. I never saw them again