Book Recommendation: Citizen 13660 by Miné Okubo

"On April 24, 1942, Civilian Exclusion Order No. 19 was issued and posted everywhere in Berkeley. Our time had come."

"We tagged our baggage with the family number, 13660, and pinned the personal tags on ourselves; we were ready at last."

"The camp was a mess. It was far from complete."

"We had to make friends with the wild creatures in the camp, especially the spiders, mice, and rats, because we were outnumbered."

Despite all this, the citizens of Tanforan found ways to create a fully-functioning society, openign schools and libraries, and holding community events like talent shows and sumo wrestling. Miné Okubo was an art instructor at one of these schools, teaching elementary and college classes, working 44 hours a week for $16 a month.

Prior to her internment, Miné Okubo worked as a Works Progress Administration artist for three years. After she was released, she was hired by Fortune magazine and moved to New York, where she continued work as an artist through exhibitions at museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her perspective reveals the true extent behind Executive Order 9906: not even government workers were spared, if they were of Japanese descent.

This Asian American classic captures the strength of the human spirit during dark times, and the importance of community. Even when they were haphazardly thrown into a half-finished camp, the Issei and Nisei worked together to create a semi-normal life while they were detained in these detention camps.

I think this book is important for everyone to read, not just Asian Americans, because Asian artists and writers are often overlooked in the US. I, for one, had never heard of this book until I stumbled across it at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. I think it's important to emphasize art made from different perspectives, whether written, photographed, or created, in order to work towards a more inclusive and equal society.

It was also fascinating to hear more in-depth about the experiences of someone who had lived through the internment camps. In history classes, Japanese internment is always quickly mentioned as an event that happened, and then it's on to the next thing, likely one battle or another on the Western Front. I think it is equally important that classes spend time on learning and teaching about Japanese internment; it is something that happened right here, in the US. How can we learn from history if we don't talk about it? If we don't talk about the decades it took for the US government to finally pay reparations and apologize to the living Issei and Nisei who had been interned?

Overall, I think this book was a fascinating and short read. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in history, as well as a fun and educational read for middle and high schoolers. You can find this book on Amazon or the University of Washington Press.