A People's Art History of the United States by Nicolas Lampert

Author:Nicolas Lampert [Lampert, Nicolas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781595589316
Publisher: The New Press

Visual Testimony

Okubo was rewarded for her decision not to agitate those who controlled her freedom. She, along with all the other internees who answered “yes” to the key questions on the loyalty tests were slowly transitioned out of the camps. Okubo herself was given the opportunity to leave Topaz in 1943, but she decided to stay until January 1944 to finish her sketches of camp life before moving to NYC for an illustration job. Fortune magazine had seen her illustrations in Trek and offered her the chance to illustrate their special issue on Japan. The publication wanted Okubo to shine a light on the internment experience, and the WRA was not only aware of her new opportunity but also approved of it. Each internee who left the camp had to provide the WRA with references (be it their new landlords, employers, or education programs), and all references were carefully screened. Greg Robinson argues that this process indicates that the WRA promoted Okubo’s work and viewed it as beneficial, for it aligned with their new objectives to reintegrate Japanese Americans back into society.25 Many Japanese Americans were dissuaded from returning to their homes on the West Coast, and were sent to the East Coast instead. Again, Okubo is remarkably subdued with regard to this gross injustice. In her introduction for the 1983 reprinting of Citizen 13660, she writes, “For the Nisei, evacuation had opened the doors of the world. After the war, they no longer had to return to the Little Tokyos of their parents. The evacuation and the war had proved their loyalty to the United States.”26

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