Mine Okubo: Citizen 13660 June 16, 2010

Mine Okubo (1912-2001) was working in Oakland as an artist for the federal government when Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941. Because of the resulting war hysteria, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. With this mandate, Okubo and thousands of other Japanese American citizens were put into internment camps and forced to abandon their belongings, homes, and businesses. Okubo's identity was reduced simply to a number--13660.