• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.59 no.4
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• pp.619-643
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• 2013

The experience of interment during World War II has been one of the primary motifs of fictional and autobiographical narratives by Japanese Americans. Examining textual evidences in John Okada's No-No Boy and Monica Sone's Nisei Daughters, this paper argues that the internment has been designed, carried out and concluded based primarily on the principles of economics. Borrowing the notion that 'wealth has (racial) color' as Lui and others maintain, this paper analyzes episodes in which the protagonists and other characters testify how their internment has resulted in their loss of capital as well as human rights and dignity, not to mention temporary suspension of their citizenships. In addition, this paper contrasts the image of the US as a land of equity as represented in the literary texts of the $18^{th}$ century authors in the US with that of our two authors. In doing so, this paper argues that the historical incident of internment in the $20^{th}$ century is the scene in which American ideals become irrecoverably sullied and American dreams turn into American nightmares.