Citizen 13660

The process of internment led to the debilitation of not only Japanese American individual identity but also the breakdown of one’s connection to family and social life. As a wartime response, the US government intended to use internment to contain an ethnic minority population that they considered a threat to national security. This assumption, based on xenophobic and racist attitudes, led to the creation of policy that wove this suspicion into every interned Japanese American’s psyche.

On an individual level, the process of internment eliminated a sense of personal identity by issuing every interned Japanese American a number for the evacuation process. When Okubo was issued the number 13660, she noted that her “family name was reduced to No. 13660” (19), pointing to the sense of dehumanization she experienced during the process. Furthermore, her number was placed on tags for her belongings, which were then flung from trucks upon arrival to Tanforan Assembly Center. The number did not matter either in the end as all individual possessions were treated with equal disregard.

The loss of personal identity also impacted other communal structures, such as family units. When the camp administration started issuing loyalty tests, families were torn apart based upon how each member responded to the loyalty test. Because the loyalty test was based on demonstrations of US patriotism, there was also rampant intimidation of the internees who refused to declare allegiance to the US. People were further divided when the internees who refused to respond affirmatively to the loyalty test were sent to a separate camp, forcing family members to make the hard decision of leaving with their loved ones to the other camp or staying behind.

By removing Japanese Americans from their normal lives, they also had to relearn how to behave in social settings outside of internment. Dire conditions of the camps had led to acts such as stealing and other unlawful behavior. Internees were forced to behave in ways that they would not have in their civilian lives. Toward the end of her time at Topaz, Okubo took classes on “How to Make Friends” and “How to Behave in the Outside World,” as internment life had sharply altered every internee’s ability to relate and connect to one another.