{"id":2542,"date":"2025-07-01T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quietamericans.com\/staging\/?p=2542"},"modified":"2025-12-07T21:22:56","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T04:22:56","slug":"no-no-boys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quietamericans.com\/staging\/no-no-boys\/","title":{"rendered":"No-No Boys (resisters)"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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The \u201cenemies\u201d had to be punished for not being \u201cloyal.\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\nJuly 1, 1944: The first group of No-No Boys are sent to federal prison for refusing to serve, while their families remained incarcerated.\n\n<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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On July 1, 1944, a group of young Japanese American men were taken from the Tule Lake Segregation Center<\/a> and transferred to a federal prison. Their crime wasn\u2019t violence. It wasn\u2019t treason. It was refusing to be drafted into the U.S. military while their families remained behind barbed wire.<\/p>\n

These men, already labeled, \u201cenemy aliens\u201d after Pearl Harbor<\/a> by the government, had answered \u201cno\u201d and \u201cno\u201d to Questions 27 and 28 on the government\u2019s so-called loyalty questionnaire:<\/p>\n

Q27: Will you serve in the U.S. armed forces wherever ordered?<\/p>\n

Q28: Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States and forswear any form of allegiance to the Japanese emperor?<\/p>\n

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A \u201csegregant\u201d being processed at Tule Lake, September 1943. Young men like him were transferred here \u2014 and later tried in federal court \u2014 for answering \u201cno\u201d and \u201cno\u201d to two loyalty questions.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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Photographs of incarceree Toshio Kuratomi and Mitsuo Kimura. Kuratomi was admitted to Tule Lake from Jerome, Arkansas on September 30, 1943.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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Page 4 of the notorious Loyalty Questionnaire \u2013 Answer \u201cyes\u201d and submit to injustice, or answer \u201cno\u201d and become labeled a threat. Credit Densho<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t
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For refusing to fight while their families remained imprisoned behind barbed wire, many \u201cNo-No Boys\u201d were sent to one of America\u2019s most infamous maximum-security prisons, Leavenworth, Kansas<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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This remote prison, McNeil Island Corrections Center, once held labor leaders, conscientious objectors \u2014 and Japanese American draft resisters.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t
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Many who answered \u201cno\u201d to both were immediately labeled \u201cdisloyal.\u201d But for many of these resisters, the answers were more complicated than the questions allowed. Some objected to being drafted while still imprisoned. Others were offended by being asked to renounce loyalty to an emperor they had never claimed in the first place.<\/p>

Rather than obedience, they chose protest.<\/p>

As punishment, the federal government rounded them up and sent them to prison. Some would spend years in federal penitentiaries like Leavenworth and McNeil Island.<\/p>

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At the time, these young men were called many things: \u201ctroublemakers,\u201d \u201cdisloyals,\u201d or \u201csegregants,\u201d because they were sent to Tule Lake, which had become the segregation center for those deemed problematic by the War Relocation Authority.<\/p>

The now-common phrase \u201cNo-No Boys\u201d did not exist yet. That name only came years later, after John Okada\u2019s 1957 novel No-No Boy<\/em> began to gain recognition during the Asian American civil rights movement in the 1970s. For decades, even within the Japanese American community, these draft resisters were shunned and forgotten.<\/p>

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Designated as a high-security camp, Tule Lake was surrounded by eight-foot fences, multiple guard towers, and armed patrols to isolate anyone labeled \u201cdisloyal.\u201d<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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Those who spoke out, protested, or resisted camp authorities were thrown into this jail, located within the Tule Lake Segregation Center itself \u2014 a prison inside a prison.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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John Okada\u2019s No-No Boy, published in 1957, was the first novel to center the experience of Japanese Americans who refused to serve in the U.S. military while their families were imprisoned in camps.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t
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The men from Tule Lake WRA Camp Block 42 were illegally arrested at gun point for refusing to register for the controversial draft questionnaire, 1943<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Today, many see them in a different light.<\/p>

They weren\u2019t traitors. They were young men demanding dignity, justice, and equal treatment under the Constitution.<\/p>

And they paid the price for it.<\/p>

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Share this article<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The \u201cenemies\u201d had to be punished for not being \u201cloyal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[20,248,131,8,6,246,250,150,32,245,15,9],"class_list":["post-2542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-aapi-history","tag-civil-rights-activism","tag-draft-resisters","tag-executive-order-9066","tag-japanese-american-history","tag-law-justice","tag-military-war","tag-no-no-boys","tag-quiet-americans","tag-wartime-incarceration","tag-wwii","tag-wwii-incarceration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quietamericans.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quietamericans.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quietamericans.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quietamericans.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quietamericans.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2542"}],"version-history":[{"count":48,"href":"https:\/\/quietamericans.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6201,"href":"https:\/\/quietamericans.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2542\/revisions\/6201"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quietamericans.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quietamericans.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quietamericans.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quietamericans.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}