''Citizen 13660'' is a book about

internment of Japanese Americans United States home front during World War II, During World War II, the United States forcibly relocated and Internment, incarcerated about 120,000 people of Japanese Americans, Japanese descent in ten #Terminology debate, concentration camps opera ...

written by

Miné Okubo Miné Okubo (;, June 27, 1912 – February 10, 2001) was an American artist and writer. She is best known for her book '' Citizen 13660'', a collection of 198 drawings and accompanying text chronicling her experiences in Japanese American internm ...

. It is a

graphic novel A graphic novel is a self-contained, book-length form of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and Anthology, anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comics sc ...

completely illustrated by Miné that depicts the life and community within the

Japanese internment camps in the United States During World War II, the United States forcibly relocated and incarcerated about 120,000 people of Japanese descent in ten concentration camps operated by the War Relocation Authority (WRA), mostly in the western interior of the country. About ...

. Miné was placed in two camps, first

Tanforan Assembly Center The Tanforan Assembly Center was created to temporarily detain nearly 8,000 Japanese Americans, mostly from the San Francisco Bay Area, under the auspices of Executive Order 9066. After the order was signed in February 1942, the Wartime Civil Cont ...

and then moved to

Topaz War Relocation Center The Topaz War Relocation Center, also known as the Central Utah Relocation Center (Topaz) and briefly as the Abraham Relocation Center, was an Internment of Japanese Americans, American concentration camp in which Nisei#American Nisei, Americans ...

. The book was published in 1946 and was a first real look into the camps because cameras were not allowed.

Background

Executive Order 9066 Executive Order 9066 was a President of the United States, United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. "This order authorized the fo ...

was signed by President

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...

on February 19, 1942. It made it legal for the US government to create exclusive internment zones for US citizens of Japanese descent. Before entering World War II, the US government used the term "illegal alien" when referring to US citizens of German, Italian and Japanese descent that were under special supervision because the government identified them as a threat. This grew stronger after the Pearl Harbor attack, and made the internment of Japanese Citizens legal.

Legacy

Miné Okubo testified about her experience within the camps and showcased her book in 1981. This novel helped the public understand what happened within Japanese Internment and what it was like. Okubo was an artist and this book has been used in education to teach about women studies, art, and historical contexts.

Summary

''Citizen 13360'' by Miné Okubo is a graphic novel that displays a first hand account of being a prisoner in the Japanese Internment Camps during WW II. The book goes through details of the transportation, daily life, infrastructure and protocols that prisoners had to live with on a daily basis. Okubo is initially sent to the Tanforan Assembly Center in San Bruno, CA. This book shows the devastation of being uprooted from one's home, family and future.

References

{{reflist 1946 graphic novels American Book Award–winning works Books about the internment of Japanese Americans University of Washington Press books Graphic novels set in the United States Graphic novels about race and ethnicity Graphic novels set in the 1940s