Miné Okubo achieved early success as an artist and continued to be extraordinarily prolific throughout her life until her death in 2001. She is most renown for Citizen 13660, a groundbreaking memoir that combines visual art and narrative to record her experience living in Japanese-American internment camps during World War II. From 1942 to 1944, Okubo was detained at the Tanforan Relocation Center in San Bruno, California, and at the Topaz Internment Camp in Utah. While in these camps, she created over 2,000 drawings using charcoal, watercolor, pen, and ink. During this time she taught art to others in the incarcerated population, alongside Chiura Obata and other notable artists. Published in 1946, Citizen 13660 includes nearly 200 illustrations documenting daily life in the camps. It received the American Book Award in 1984.