The Japanese internment is a historical event that is often glossed over despite being the “first mass evacuation” in the United States entailing the removal of American civilians, namely 120,000 Japanese Americans, due to racial discrimination (Okubo, Introduction). The physical edifices of the ten internment camps located in the “remote desert and mountain areas” no longer exist; instead, all that remains are “pieces of concrete, pipes, and wire” (Introduction). As cameras and other “modes of media technology endowed with evidentiary weight” were “not permitted in the camps,” there is very little documentation and records of the Japanese American internment from the actual evacuees themselves (Introduction VIII). Citizen 13660 serves as a
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While Okubo could have chosen to only use words to describe her circumstances, such methodology would have reduced the effectiveness of her narrative as the text alone would be insufficient in precisely rendering an occurrence that had minimal photographic records. As “little was known of the Japanese people” in “most parts” of the United States, pictures would have been absolutely necessary if Okubo wished to provide the readers a richer understanding of the horrific experience that the Japanese Americans had to endure (xxv). Visual imagery provides individuals a three-dimensional concrete rendering of its subjects, making it quite possibly the best way to for one to understand foreigners and their culture. One must remember that cameras and other forms of recording instruments were not permitted at the camps; thus, for readers, her illustrations serve as primary historical evidence of this particular event. Further, racist caricatures of the Japanese were quite prevalent in the United States during World War II, which further distorted the American society’s perspective of the Japanese. In short, the discrepancy between the text and illustration gives readers a visual and more comprehensive insight of the camps, ultimately highlighting the appropriateness of writing the narrative in graphic memoir format. In terms of documenting the internment, Okubo had very limited options and the graphic memoir format was the optimal choice as it allowed her to keep a record visually and in print. She took the visual aesthetics of a graphic novel, which had hitherto been used for racist caricatures, and remodeled it to accommodate her needs and not have it conform to the racist
While Okubo could have chosen to only use words to describe her circumstances, such methodology would have reduced the effectiveness of her narrative as the text alone would be insufficient in precisely rendering an occurrence that had minimal photographic records. As “little was known of the Japanese people” in “most parts” of the United States, pictures would have been absolutely necessary if Okubo wished to provide the readers a richer understanding of the horrific experience that the Japanese Americans had to endure (xxv). Visual imagery provides individuals a three-dimensional concrete rendering of its subjects, making it quite possibly the best way to for one to understand foreigners and their culture. One must remember that cameras and other forms of recording instruments were not permitted at the camps; thus, for readers, her illustrations serve as primary historical evidence of this particular event. Further, racist caricatures of the Japanese were quite prevalent in the United States during World War II, which further distorted the American society’s perspective of the Japanese. In short, the discrepancy between the text and illustration gives readers a visual and more comprehensive insight of the camps, ultimately highlighting the appropriateness of writing the narrative in graphic memoir format. In terms of documenting the internment, Okubo had very limited options and the graphic memoir format was the optimal choice as it allowed her to keep a record visually and in print. She took the visual aesthetics of a graphic novel, which had hitherto been used for racist caricatures, and remodeled it to accommodate her needs and not have it conform to the racist