John Okada

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John Okada (1923—1971) was an Japanese-American writer. He attended the University of Washington and Columbia University. He served in the US Army in World War II.

His only novel, No-No Boy, deals with the aftermath of the Japanese-American internment during WWII and how this divided the Japanese-American population after the war.

According to Lawson Fusao Inada in La Grande, Oregon in July 29, 1976 in the introduction of No-No Boy after meeting Dorothy Okada, John Okada's wife: Dorothy is a truly wonderful person. It hurt to have her tell us that "you two are the first ones who ever came to see him about his work." It hurt to have her tell us that she recently burned his "other novel about the Issei, which we both researched and which was almost finished." It hurt to have her tell us that "the people I tried to contact about it never answered so when I moved I burned it, because I have him in my heart." You could say John was "ahead of his time" that he was born too early and died too young"