Miné Okubo: Citizen 13360 - Exhibit at the Oakland Museum

Miné Okubo was a Nisei artist, writer and social activist who recorded through art her life of confinement in US internment camps during the war. Her pen and ink sketches and observations of daily life in the camps became the book Citizen 13360, published in 1946. The title comes from the number assigned to her family unit. Despite nearly two years of confinement in camps at San Bruno's Tanforan Racetrack and Utah's Topaz Relocation Center, there is a refreshing lack of bitterness in the tone of her documentation and artwork.

The Oakland Museum of California is currently featuring a small exhibit of Okubo's work through August 1. There are a number of ink drawings and cliché verre prints, which is a technique using transparent material such as glass and light sensitive paper. These works depict everyday life within the camps, conveying its indignity and claustrophobia, but also a feeling of the inevitability of life itself, with its entire range of emotions, even humor.   

There is also a self-portrait which reflects Diego Rivera's influences, whom she assisted when he was creating a mural commissioned for the 1939-40 Golden Gate International Exposition. Okubo was a versatile artist with a Masters from UC Berkeley and training in Europe, and her successful career resumed after the war.

Copies of Okubo's Citizen 13360 are available at the Oakland Museum book store. I also recommend reading Miné Okubo: Following Her Own Road, edited by Greg Robinson and Elena Tajima Creef, published by the University of Washington Press in 2008 following Okubo's death. This is the first book-length examination of Okubo's work spanning 70 years. 

Museum notes on above images:

Untitled (Women bathing, Tanforan Assembly Center, San Bruno, California)
1942 / cliché verre
"The older women preferred the good old-fashioned bathtubs to showers. It was a common sight to see them bathing in pails, dishpans, or in tubs made from barrels."

Untitled (Bachelor playing solitaire, Tanforan Assembly Center, San Bruno, California)
1942 / ink on paper
"Nearly 400 bachelors were housed in the grandstand 'dorm.' They slept and snored, dressed and undressed, in one continuous public performance."

Quote from Citizen 13660

"In the camps, first at Tanforan and then at Topaz in Utah, I had the opportunity to study the human race from the cradle to the grave, and to see what happens to people when reduced to one status and one condition. Cameras and photographs were not permitted in the camps, so I recorded everything in sketches, drawings and paintings." 

Note on the Oakland Museum:

This museum was a favorite childhood hangout and holds many memories. I always loved its impressive mid-century modern architecture. Its galleries recently underwent a huge redesign, updating the look and becoming much more interactive for kids, so it's worth a visit to the art and history galleries. However the nature gallery is still undergoing changes and won't reopen till 2012.


Oakland Museum of California

1000 Oak St.
Oakland, CA 94607
Phone: 510-238-2200

New Hours
Wed, Sat, Sun 11 am–5 pm
Thurs & Fri 11 am–8 pm
Second Fridays open to 9 p.m.
Closed Monday and Tuesday
Free Every First Sunday