Miné Okubo

Born in Riverside, California, as a second-generation, Nisei. During her childhood, Okubo learned a lot from her mother, who had graduated from Tokyo Fine Arts School. She enrolled at Riverside Junior College and then received a scholarship to proceed to the University of California, Berkeley. She completed her M.F.A. in 1936 in Fine Art and Anthropology. In 1938, she received a scholarship to study in Europe, but the outbreak of World War II and news of her mother’s critical condition prompted her to return to the United States. After returning to the West Coast, she joined the Federal Art Project of Work Progress Administration (WPA), serving Diego Rivera as an assistant for mural production. She held her solo exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1940 and 1941. During the war, she was interned first at the Tanforan Assembly Center, and then at the Topaz internment camp. She tried to capture all the moments of her experience, from the removal from the West Coast to the daily life in the camp, producing numerous sketches. Her art in the camp gained attention, and the Fortune magazine employed her, leading to her release from the camp, and moving to New York in 1944. In 1946, she published the Citizen 13660.