The Japanese American No-No Boys in World War II

The Japanese American No-No Boys in World War II To understand who the No-No Boys were, it’s first necessary to understand the events of World War II. The United States government’s decision to place more than 110,000 individuals of Japanese origin into internment camps without cause during the war marks one of the most disgraceful chapters in American history. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, nearly three months after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. At the time, the federal government argued that separating Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans from their homes and livelihoods was a necessity because such people posed a national security threat, as they were supposedly likely to conspire with the Japanese empire to plan additional attacks on the U.S. Today historians agree that racism and xenophobia against people of Japanese ancestry following the Pearl Harbor attack prompted the executive order. After all, the United States was also at odds with Germany and Italy during World War II, but the federal government did not order mass internment of Americans of German and Italian origin. Unfortunately, the federal government’s egregious actions did not end with the forced evacuation of Japanese Americans. After depriving these Americans of their civil rights, the government then asked them to fight for the country. While some agreed in hopes of proving their loyalty to the U.S., others refused. They were known as No-No Boys. Vilified at the time for their decision, today No-No Boys are largely viewed as heroes for standing up to a government that deprived them of their freedom. A Survey Tests Loyalty The No-No Boys received their name by answering no to two questions on a survey given to Japanese Americans forced into concentration camps. Question #27 asked: â€Å"Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty, wherever ordered?† Question #28 asked: â€Å"Will you swear unqualified allegiances to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, or other foreign government, power or organization?† Outraged that the U.S. government demanded that they vow loyalty to the country after flagrantly violating their civil liberties, some Japanese Americans refused to enlist in the armed forces. Frank Emi, an internee at the Heart Mountain camp in Wyoming, was one such young man. Angered that his rights had been trampled on, Emi and a half-dozen other Heart Mountain internees formed the Fair Play Committee (FPC) after receiving draft notices. The FPC declared in March 1944: â€Å"We, the members of the FPC, are not afraid to go to war. We are not afraid to risk our lives for our country. We would gladly sacrifice our lives to protect and uphold the principles and ideals of our country as set forth in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, for on its inviolability depends the freedom, liberty, justice, and protection of all people, including Japanese Americans and all other minority groups. But have we been given such freedom, such liberty, such justice, such protection? NO!† Punished for Standing Up For refusing to serve, Emi, his fellow FPC participants, and more than 300 internees at 10 camps were prosecuted. Emi served 18 months in a federal penitentiary in Kansas. The bulk of No-No Boys faced three-year sentences in a federal penitentiary. In addition to felony convictions, internees who refused to serve in the military faced a backlash in Japanese American communities. For example, leaders of the Japanese American Citizens League characterized draft resisters as disloyal cowards and blamed them for giving the American public the idea that Japanese Americans were unpatriotic. For resisters such as Gene Akutsu, the backlash took a tragic personal toll. While he only answered no to Question #27- that he would not serve in the U.S. armed forces on combat duty wherever ordered- he ultimately ignored the draft noticed received, resulting in him serving more than three years in a federal prison in Washington state. He left prison in 1946, but that wasn’t soon enough for his mother. The Japanese American community ostracized her- even telling her not to show up at church- because Akutsu and another son dared defy the federal government. â€Å"One day it all got to her and she took her life,† Akutsu told American Public Media (APM) in 2008. â€Å"When my mother passed away, I refer to that as a wartime casualty.â€Å" President Harry Truman pardoned all of the wartime draft resisters in December 1947. As a result, the criminal records of the young Japanese American men who refused to serve in the military were cleared. Akutsu told APM he wished his mother had been around to hear Truman’s decision. â€Å"If she had only lived one more year longer, we would have had a clearance from the president saying that we are all okay and you have all your citizenship back,† he explained. â€Å"That’s all she was living for.† The Legacy of the No-No Boys The 1957 novel No-No Boy by John Okada captures how Japanese American draft-resisters suffered for their defiance. Although Okada himself actually answered yes to both queries on the loyalty questionnaire, enlisting in the Air Force during World War II, he spoke with a No-No Boy named Hajime Akutsu after completing his military service and was moved enough by Akutsu’s experiences to tell his story.​ The book has immortalized the emotional turmoil that No-No Boys endured for making a decision that is now largely viewed as heroic. The shift in how No-No Boys are perceived is in part due to the federal government’s acknowledgment in 1988 that it had wronged Japanese Americans by interning them without cause. Twelve years later, the JACL apologized for widely vilifying draft resisters. In November 2015, the musical Allegiance, which chronicles a No-No Boy, debuted on Broadway.

Did You Know You Can Delete ACT Scores How to Do It

Did You Know You Can Delete ACT Scores How to Do It SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Did you know it’s possible to totally delete a set of ACT scores you don’t like? Poof - just like that. A bad set of ACT scores can vanish. This isn't a well known fact, and in fact we were surprised to discover it ourselves. But it has big implications for how you test, especially if you're afraid of taking the test too many times because it'll look bad to colleges. We will explain how to delete ACT scores and discuss in which circumstances it might make sense. Read on for an exclusive guide to getting rid of bad ACT scores. What Does Deleting an ACT Test Score Do? Deleting a test record means you are completely erasing the scores from a particular test date. This includes both the overall composite score and the individual section scores. (For more on ACT scoring, see our post.) If you do this, those scores will be permanently deleted and you will never see them again. You also won’t get a refund for that test date. This is different from canceling scores – canceling stops the ACT from grading a particular test (students usually do this if they get sick or really struggle on test day). This means the scores never even exist because the test was never graded. For scores to be deleted, the test obviously has to be graded and scored first. We'll talk about some reasons students might delete an ACT test record below. Why Would You Delete an ACT Test Record? Basically, if you have an ACT score you’re unhappy with and don’t want colleges to see, you can delete it. Again, keep in mind you’re forfeiting the money you spent to get that score if you do this. This gets you around the requirement some colleges have to send all of your existing standardized test scores. For example, both Stanford and Yale require applicants to send all scores they have from the ACT or SAT. â€Å"Official scores from all test dates must be sent to Stanford directly from the ACT or the College Board (the reporting agency for the SAT) or both if the applicant has taken the ACT and the SAT. Applicants may not use the College Board's Score Choice feature or "hide" any scores with either testing agency," says Stanford on their admissions site. â€Å"You must report the scores of all of the SATs and any SAT Subject Tests you have taken, or all of the ACTs and ACT Writing Tests that you’ve taken," says Yale. However, if you delete an ACT score, it will no longer exist – making it impossible to send. I spoke with someone at the ACT who confirmed that colleges will not see scores you have deleted. Is this a bit of a sneaky workaround? Maybe. But if the ACT gives you the option to delete your test scores, there is nothing wrong with your using that service. By accepting the ACT as a standardized test, colleges have to also accept the ACT’s score policies, including score deletion. ACT Test Scores You Can't Delete Even though deleting ACT scores is possible in some cases, keep the following exceptions in mind. First, you can’t delete every possibleACT score you have. Specifically, you can’t delete scores associated with state or district tests. This is because those scores aren’t just for you, they’re used to evaluate your school and district. Furthermore, if you take the ACT as part of district testing, you didn’t pay for it. The ACT says students have the right to delete their scores because â€Å"students own their test scores.† In short, deleting only applies to testing that you paid for. A map showing the states that use the ACT as part of their testing. Image via ACT State Services. Second, deleting a test record won’t do anything about scores that have already been sent to colleges. So if you had your scores sent to colleges right after you took the ACT, you can't get those reports back. In fact, we recommend that you not send those four free score reports that come with your ACT registration because they’re sent before you know your score, which is pretty risky. Should You Delete Your ACT Scores? Don’t delete a test record before you’re sure of a few things. You don't want to act too quickly and completely lose a test record forever before you're positive you want it deleted. First, Where Are You Applying? Some schools, for example MIT, don’t require applicants to send all of their scores. â€Å"Students are free to use the College Board's Score Choice option and the ACT's option to submit the scores of your choice as well," they say on their admissions site. Harvard has the same policy: â€Å"You are free to use the College Board Score Choice option or the similar option offered by the ACT.† If you are only applying to schools that allow you to use score choice – or in other words to only send your best scores – you don’t have to worry about deleting bad ACT scores. To see if a school allows score choice, search for the â€Å"Standardized Testing† page on their application website. Schools will specify there if they want all of your scores or if they’ll let you use score choice. If the info isn't on the standardized testing page, check the Frequently Asked Questions. Also stay tuned for our post about which schools require all scores. Second, How Low is Low? In case you are applying to schools that require you to submit all scores, or even if you have a score you don’t think you would send if you had the choice, you should decide if that score is really too low to keep. See our guide to good, bad, and excellent ACT scores to see if the score you’re worried about is in range for your target schools. Don’t delete a score unless you’re positive it’s bad. This is especially true if your composite was lower than you wanted, but you had some high section scores. It’s possible that on a retake you could get a higher composite but have certain section scores go down, and you might want colleges to see those high section scores. For example, say your first ACT composite was a 26 but you had a 34 on the Math section. If you retake the ACT and get to a 32 composite but your math score is 30 the second time around, you would lose that high math score. Think carefully before deleting a set of ACT scores with any high section scores. Third, Don't Delete Your Score Too Quickly Do not delete your ACT score until you already have achieved a higher score on a retake. If you delete your score before you retake the ACT, what happens if you get an even lower score on the retake? Then you have lost your higher score and can’t get it back. The best case then would be to retake the ACT a third time, costing you more time and money. There is no rush on deleting your scores, so focus on retaking the ACT and getting a higher score before you worry about deleting a low score. Patience isn't only a virtue... it can save you time and money. Fourth, When Did You Take the ACT? If you took the ACT for a talent competition or other program in middle school or earlier, you don't have to delete those scores, even if they’re super low. Colleges are only concerned with standardized testing you took while in high school. If anything, participation in early talent programs will look good on college applications, so you have no need to delete a score from an ACT back in middle school. So How Do You Actually Delete an ACT Record? To delete a test record, you simply have to submit a written request to ACT. Provide your name and home address and state you wish to delete a test record. Mail the request to: ACT Institutional Services P.O. Box 168 Iowa City, IA 52243-0168 USA ACT will then mail you a form to complete and return. After you submit the form, the test record will then be permanently deleted from ACT’s records. There is no additional cost for this – however, you are forfeiting whatever you paid to take the ACT on that test date. What’s Next? Have an ACT score you’re not proud of? We have resources to help you prepare to knock your retake out of the park. Start by reading a guide to a perfect ACT score by our 36 full-scorer. Even if you're not going for a perfect score, these study principles can help you make the improvements you need to get a higher ACT score. Get strategies for reading ACT science passages, concepts you need to master ACT English, and learn how to stop running out of time on ACT Math. We recommend taking at least one full-length, strictly-timed ACT practice test to get used to the test format and build your stamina. Get links to free, official tests here. Want to improve your ACT score by 4 points? Check out our best-in-class online ACT prep program. We guarantee your money back if you don't improve your ACT score by 4 points or more. Our program is entirely online, and it customizes your prep program to your strengths and weaknesses. We also have expert instructors who can grade every one of your practice ACT essays, giving feedback on how to improve your score. Check out our 5-day free trial: