Heterotopia and the Failure of Pluralism in the Post-Internment Era: A Foucauldian Reading of John Okada's No-No Boy

Abstract

Based on Michel Foucault's concept of heterotopia as a theoretical framework, the present paper analyzes the dilemma of Japanese Americans as represented in No-No Boy (1957) by the Japanese American novelist John Okada (1923-1971). The paper seeks to add to the extant studies on the aftermath of the Second World War, particularly in relation to Japanese Americans and the repercussions of their internment experience. Foucault's concept of heterotopia adapts well to a reading of Okada's novel because it helps to find a link between bicultural tensions, the crisis of citizenship for Japanese Americans in the aftermath of the Second World War, and the idea of cultural pluralism as a major postmodern vision. By applying Foucault's concept of heterotopia, the paper proves that Okada's novel introduces a world in which diversity is not tolerated and minorities are considered heterotopias of deviation and crisis rather than essential constituents of a pluralist nation. The paper argues that the US created heterotopias by interning almost the entire minority of Japanese Americans and permanent Japanese residents inside concentration camps and prisons during the Second World War. Moreover, the paper demonstrates that the aftermath of the war as well as the internment experience marks the failure of cultural pluralism in America