The written text of Mine Okubo’s memoir of wartime internment alone would make this book worth reading. But the illustrations collected here as accompaniment, nearly 200 of the 2,000 ink sketches she completed while interned, make it a precious archival object. Published in 1946, when the movement to forget America’s wartime sins was already in high-gear, Okubo’s images of camp life bear stubborn witness without oversimplifying - each plate is both melancholic and playful, indicting and humanizing.
— Jack K.Mine Okubo was one of over one hundred thousand people of Japanese descent - nearly two-thirds of whom were American citizens - who were forced into "protective custody" shortly after Pearl Harbor. Citizen 13660, Okubo's graphic memoir of life in relocation centers in California and Utah, illuminates this experience with poignant illustrations and witty, candid text. Now available with a new introduction by Christine Hong and in a wide-format artist edition, this graphic novel can reach a new generation of readers and scholars.
Read more about Mine Okubo in Mine Okubo: Following Her Own Road, edited by Greg Robinson and Elena Tajima Creef. https: //uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295987743/mine-okubo/