Name: Citizen 13660
ISBN: 9780295993546

Mine Okubo

Mine Okubo was one of 110,000 people of Japanese descent-nearly two-thirds of them American citizens - who were rounded up into "protective custody" shortly after Pearl Harbor. This poignantly written and beautifully illustrated memoir of her life in two relocation centers was first published in 1946 and is now reissued with a new preface by the author. 

Citizen 13660

A powerful graphic memoir that is unfortunately still relevant today—in a time of deportations, concentration camps, and politically targeted kidnappings. Citizen 13660 (the number provided to replace Okubo’s family name in her family unit while at the camp) tells the reality of life when FDR banished all Japanese and Japanese American citizens—and even some Alaskan indigenous peoples—to internment camps across the western United States. Okubo writes that she began the project in order to highlight the mundane, the traumatic, and the humorous aspects of camp life and used the story as a way to process the things that were happening to her and other Japanese Americans at the time. This book needs to be read, especially by Americans. I came across Okubo’s story and art while visiting the American Art Museum in Washington DC. Her work will be on display until August 17, 2025. 

Sabrina D. 

Laura Mauler

Informative and straight-forward, although not as compelling as I had anticipated. It minimized the personal aspects of Okubo's experience, and didn't really cover the emotional toll on the people. A good starter book, but if you only read one book on the subject I'd find a more in-depth one.

Citizen 13660

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