Book Report: Citizen 13660

11. Miné Okubo, Citizen 13660 (1946/1983) (6/21/18)

This book, a "graphic memoir," chronicles two years during World War II, when people of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of whom were American citizens, were rounded up and sent to concentration camps. Okubo was an artist, and her account features 200 pen-and-ink drawings—she was never without her sketchbook—of daily life in the camps (first Tanforan, south of San Francisco—a racetrack; then Topaz in northern Utah), accompanied by usually spare, matter-of-fact captions. The book's title comes from the number she and her brother, Benji—her family unit—were assigned.

In this book we learn about the removal of Japanese Americans on the West Coast into "protective custody" after Pearl Harbor; the conditions in the camps; how people made do, such as making furniture out of scrap wood and planting "victory gardens" in the dry desert of Utah; daily activities and hardships (there was a lot of standing in line, and always dust blowing). Okubo expresses no bitterness in these vignettes, but focuses on objective observation. Interestingly, she includes herself in each frame, underscoring her role as a participant narrator. Despite the unjustness of the incarceration, what shines through in her drawings and text is the indomitability of the human spirit.

Our friends came to take us to the Civil Control Station.
We took one last look at our happy home.

[First meal at Tanforan:]
At the dishware and silverware counter I picked up a plate,
a knife, and a fork. I wiped my plate clean with my handkerchief
and held it out to the first of the cooks, who was serving boiled
potatoes with his hands. The second cook had just dished out the last
of the canned Vienna sausages, the main part of the dinner, so I
passed by him and received two slices of bread from a girl at
the end of the food counter.
We were pushed into the mess hall, where the entire space was
filled with long tables and backless benches. Each table was
supposed to accommodate eight persons but right now each
was a bedlam of hungry people. We looked for an empty place
but could find none. The air was stuffy and, having temporarily
lost our appetite, we decided to forget about eating.

"Line-ups here and line-ups there" describes our daily life.
We lined up for mail, for checks, for meals, for showers, for
washrooms, for laundry tubs, for toilets, for clinic service,
for movies. We lined up for everything.

[In January 1944 Okubo was preparing to leave camp for New York]
After plowing through the red tape, through the madness of
packing again, I attended forums on "How to Make Friends" and
"How to Behave in the Outside World."
I was photographed.