Isolation and Identity in Citizen 13660
Miné Okubo’s Citizen 13660 provides an autobiographical account of the author’s time in Japanese internment camps during World War II. The graphic novel style that couples text with illustrations presents a visual narration of the life of the subjected Japanese citizens during the time. In her narrative, Miné makes a point of establishing herself both visually and textually as an outsider to the Japanese, preferring to self-identify with being an artist first and foremost. Because of her education and class, she occupied a privileged position. This privilege gives her the illusion of an ability to deracinate herself and be just-an-artist before being Japanese. However, this attempt to ignore her racial positioning for her class ultimately proves impossible, emphasizing that a non-raced status is a privilege ironically hinged on race; it can only be accessed by white Americans. Okubo’s account displays that a raceless “American” identity can never be self-designated by the oppressed other, as they hold no power over even their own subjugation.
The narrator initially establishes herself as socioeconomically privileged, and that privilege allows her to temporarily ignore her …show more content…
Chang discusses how Asian-Americans were seen by the general American population as “so deeply foreign as to be unassimilable into the US polity” (121), which reflects the conflict of identity in Citizen 13660. Miné tries to assimilate due to her class status, but according to the people in power, she will always be an Other, never a full American. However, the disparity presented in the text between self-identity and imposed identity serves not to discourage marginalized racial communities from ever attempting to claim their own selfhood, but to reveal to readers how white American society forces ethnic minorities into boxes, and the consequences for those in those
Miné Okubo’s Citizen 13660 provides an autobiographical account of the author’s time in Japanese internment camps during World War II. The graphic novel style that couples text with illustrations presents a visual narration of the life of the subjected Japanese citizens during the time. In her narrative, Miné makes a point of establishing herself both visually and textually as an outsider to the Japanese, preferring to self-identify with being an artist first and foremost. Because of her education and class, she occupied a privileged position. This privilege gives her the illusion of an ability to deracinate herself and be just-an-artist before being Japanese. However, this attempt to ignore her racial positioning for her class ultimately proves impossible, emphasizing that a non-raced status is a privilege ironically hinged on race; it can only be accessed by white Americans. Okubo’s account displays that a raceless “American” identity can never be self-designated by the oppressed other, as they hold no power over even their own subjugation.
The narrator initially establishes herself as socioeconomically privileged, and that privilege allows her to temporarily ignore her …show more content…
Chang discusses how Asian-Americans were seen by the general American population as “so deeply foreign as to be unassimilable into the US polity” (121), which reflects the conflict of identity in Citizen 13660. Miné tries to assimilate due to her class status, but according to the people in power, she will always be an Other, never a full American. However, the disparity presented in the text between self-identity and imposed identity serves not to discourage marginalized racial communities from ever attempting to claim their own selfhood, but to reveal to readers how white American society forces ethnic minorities into boxes, and the consequences for those in those