John Okada

John Okada (September 23, 1923 – February 20, 1971) was an American writer, who is considered to be the first Japanese American novelist. Born in Seattle, he was a student at the University of Washington during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Okada had to interrupt his studies, and he and his family were among thousands of American citizens interned at Minidoka War Relocation Center in 1942. Okada was taken out of the concentration camp and recruited to the United States Army Air Forces after he completed a loyalty questionnaire which asked him to "forswear allegiance" to the Emperor of Japan. He served as a Japanese translator, overflying Japanese forces in the Pacific and translating intercepted Japanese communications.After the war, Okada returned to his educational pursuits, earning a bachelor's degree in English and a second bachelor's degree in library science from the University of Washington, as well as a master's degree in English from Columbia University. In 1956, Okada completed the manuscript for his novel No-No Boy, and it was published that year; it was the first novel ever published by a U.S.-born Japanese American. He worked as a teacher and then as a technical writer for an engineering firm. Okada died of a heart attack on February 20, 1971, at the age of 47. He was survived by his wife Dorothy, as well as a son and a daughter. He is interred at Evergreen Washelli Memorial Park in Seattle.Okada's younger brother Frank Okada was a noted abstract expressionist painter.