The construction of a white American heroism through uncritical celebrations of World War II, within public spaces, accompanied with the recurring antagonistic anthem of "Never Forget Pearl Harbor!" serves simultaneously to reinforce the perception of Asian Americans as foreign and un-American, legitimizing the physical and symbolic violence perpetrated against them post-World War II. Problematically, World War II heroism is centered on a seemingly inclusive discourse of Americanness and... Show moreThe construction of a white American heroism through uncritical celebrations of World War II, within public spaces, accompanied with the recurring antagonistic anthem of "Never Forget Pearl Harbor!" serves simultaneously to reinforce the perception of Asian Americans as foreign and un-American, legitimizing the physical and symbolic violence perpetrated against them post-World War II. Problematically, World War II heroism is centered on a seemingly inclusive discourse of Americanness and patriotism while counter-narratives of non-white resistance are constructed almost exclusively from the specificity of distinct racial communities. I focus on the significance of a handful of racially intersecting "moments" in which Japanese Americans drew parallels between their experiences and the racial exclusion of Black Americans and similarly when Black Americans drew parallels between their experience and the racial exclusion of Japanese Americans. While the feeling of shared racial exclusion were not expressed by most Americans of color, this dissertation centers on historical and literary expressions of shared strategies of resistance towards their racial exclusion during World War II Our Need for Heroes is an interdisciplinary study grounded in an American Studies perspective incorporating history, literature and contemporary popular culture. I locate racially intersecting moments that surface within the memoirs and oral histories of Japanese American incarceration by both Nisei and Issei as well as various articles in the Black Press, two critical sites for documenting the history of non-white American World War II resistance. These moments also surface in how resistance is remembered in post-World War II literature. Chester Himes' If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945) and John Okada's No-No Boy (1957) raise questions of whether or not fighting in the war was politically advantageous for Americans of color by critiquing the racially exclusive constructions of patriotism and citizenship. Draft resistance is constructed as a legitimate response to this exclusion as the novels attempt to reheroize the performance of draft resisters through a process of remasculating each protagonist. Laureen Mar's short story Resistance (1993) and Shawn Wong's American Knees (1995) remember and rewrite the Japanese American incarceration history as a narrative of empowerment as each protagonist's nostalgic search for heroism is reflected in the absence of heroism in their current lives. This dissertation explores the memory of draft resistance and Japanese American incarceration, considering processes of rethinking and reheroization through which these experiences are transformed from a history of shame into one rooted in agency. I argue Asian American and Black American reconstructions of narratives of draft resistance and Japanese American incarceration histories during World War II are critical for rethinking the exclusive racialized constructions of patriotism, dissent and citizenship. Show less
