They Called Us Enemy

You probably know George Takei from his role as Hikaru Sulu in the original Star Trek series. You may know him as a LGBTQ and civil rights activist. But I didn’t know that, as a child, he had been interned, along with his family, at the easternmost Japanese internment camp, Rohwer Camp in Arkansas.

He was only four when his family was removed from their home in California and incarcerated. Like many kids of that age, as long as he was with his family, it seemed like an adventure – even in their first home in the horse stalls at the Santa Anita racetrack.

This graphic novel includes his experiences as a child and his deeper knowledge of events as an adult, including the despair and humiliations his parents endured. It ends talking show more about the kids incarcerated at the US border.

I learned so much from it. It’s deeply relevant today. I would love to see copies in American junior high and highschool classrooms as kids today so need to know this chapter of American history. show less

The Publisher Says: A stunning graphic memoir recounting actor/author/activist George Takei's childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps during World War II. Experience the forces that shaped an American icon -- and America itself -- in this gripping tale of courage, country, loyalty, and love.

George Takei has captured hearts and minds worldwide with his captivating stage presence and outspoken commitment to equal rights. But long before he braved new frontiers in Star Trek, he woke up as a four-year-old boy to find his own birth country at war with his father's -- and their entire family forced from their home into an uncertain future.

In 1942, at the order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, every person of Japanese show more descent on the west coast was rounded up and shipped to one of ten "relocation centers," hundreds or thousands of miles from home, where they would be held for years under armed guard.

They Called Us Enemy is Takei's firsthand account of those years behind barbed wire, the joys and terrors of growing up under legalized racism, his mother's hard choices, his father's faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future.

What is American? Who gets to decide? When the world is against you, what can one person do? To answer these questions, George Takei joins co-writers Justin Eisinger & Steven Scott and artist Harmony Becker for the journey of a lifetime.

THIS WAS AN INTER–LIBRARY LOAN FROM MY LOCAL LIBRARY. THANKS, Y'ALL!

My Review: A graphic memoir? Me? And give it five stars?!? Never. Will not happen.

Yet here we are:

The horror of interning United States citizens based solely on the color of their skins!

Oh wait...we do that now..."interning" being synonymous with "incarcerating"...well, anyway, it's appalling and abominable. The Takei family is rousted out of their Los Angeles home by Executive Order 9066. They're shipped as far away from the Pacific Ocean as they can get: The Great State of Arkansas! *shudder* A swampy bit, as well...the Takeis weren't familiar with the climate, hot and humid summers with cold and snowy winters; the worst of all possible worlds for Mediterranean-climate natives!

George, brother Henry, and sister Nancy are lucky, however, as their father is a take-charge kind of a guy with a glad-handing streak as well as organizational capabilities, patience in abundance, and a generous heart. Mama Takei is sure her family will be okay despite everything because she is going to by-god *make* things okay. Her efforts to clothe and entertain her family, her strenuous work ethic keeping the children clean and as healthy as she can, mean that they're better off than many...so the Takeis help them. Because of course...those with nothing find a way to share with those who have even less.

There were good times as well as bad. Takei senior, as a helpful and useful inmate, got the family occasional privileges, like the use of a Jeep for a day out:

Not everyone in Arkansas thought the Japanese belonged in the camps. Not everyone in the US agreed with this vile act, this blot on the national escutcheon.

But tell that to the men who were young and patriotic enough to want to serve their country in the global war against fascism.

Their mistreatment at the hands of the democratic institutions designed to defend a citizen's life, liberty, and ability to pursue an existence that will make them happy radicalized them, leading to protests and horrors of oppression still worse than internment at Federal penitentiaries.

The tale ends, as we all know, when the war is over...but the country's wounds aren't healed so much as papered over. Now the returning African Americans, veterans and war workers, would need to gain civil rights...and there were injustices against the Japanese Americans unaddressed...and so on and so forth, to this good day, with others now in the victim role. Takei specifically draws parallels with the Muslim refugee crisis and the Hispanic emigration atrocities. He lived it. His voice carries authority: What we-the-people are allowing, even (I am nauseated to say) enjoying, to occur to Hispanic families is unconscionable, inexcusable, and proof that the lessons of history are lost on far too many of us.

Takei's journey took him into our living rooms on Star Trek: The Original Series, and its many sequels. He's spent his many years since riding that amazing introduction back into our lives advocating for positive social changes and fairer, more equal access to the USA's immense and unprecedented benefits for all. His life has been very well-lived and spent generously working to bring the American Dream into reality, only for *all* Americans.

Be like George, as the meme says.

(Only I like this one better.) show less

I doubt a book about immigrants and children of immigrants being snatched from their homes and placed in camps with awful conditions could possibly be more timely than it is right now. George Takei was one of those children. His father was born in Japan and his mother was a US citizen born in CA, but that did not matter. After Pearl Harbor no one of Japanese heritage was safe.

At first I questioned the logic of telling this story via a graphic novel, but I was not far into it when I realized what I brilliant idea it was. It's a perfect medium to capture both the innocence and horror of a child facing such an awful time. He was so young that he and his little brother thought it was a great adventure until they were hungry and cold, or show more stuck in a swampy camp down South.

George and his family were incarcerated for four long years. They lost their family cleaning business and their home and had to start from scratch when they were finally released. They were forced to live on the street for a while, as were thousands of others. I would have thought this was incomprehensible behavior by the federal government, but now I know better.

Highly recommended if you can handle it. show less

George Takei’s graphic memoir, They Called Us Enemy, is a phenomenal book that tells the history of Japanese American imprisonment during WWII — a history that for many is unknown. The great illustrations combined with excellent writing made for a compelling read. I cannot remember learning about this in school. If it was covered, it must have been glossed over. Either way is a problem. I’m so glad that books like this exist so I can continue learning as an adult.

This graphic novel memoir of Takei's memories spending a couple of years in internment camps during World War 2 hardly needs introduction, as it's had a lot of press and several people here on LT singing it's praises. Well, I'll add my voice to that. The story is, I think, surprisingly complex. This are his childhood memories, and he admits at one point that as horrible as some of these memories are, he actually has a memory of joyfulness in some of it too. And yet, some of what happens is terrible and traumatic. Not only that, but he explores remembered conversations between him and his dad about the internment camps and the importance of being involved in government, with a complicated but mostly optimistic view of the American show more government. Readers can see how much that time in the internment camp affected Takei and the way in which it's impacted his attitudes and political involvement. A challenging read, and I highly recommend it. show less

I finished this graphic novel in one day. It was so captivating that I could not put it down.

I had been vaguely familiar with the "internment" (imprisonment) of Japanese Americans during World War II in the United States, but this graphic novel educated me to a much higher level on that issue. Many times I was brought to tears by what I viewed happening in this book. I was particularly interested in how some politicians of that time (the 1940s) used racial identity as an issue for political gain. I also was appreciative of the fact that George Takei did not neglect to mention how events of his youth are being paralleled in this decade.

This is a very disturbing book, although it does hold out hope for American democracy and principled show more individuals. It is a remarkable story which I highly recommend that everyone read. show less

Like tens of thousands of other Japanese Americans, George Takei spent much of the Second World War in an internment camp, guilty of no crime other than being of Japanese heritage. He recounts his childhood experiences, the effects of internment on his family, and his subsequent involvement in civil rights/community advocacy in this graphic novel /memoir. They Called Us Enemy is very moving, and unfortunately still a very timely read—and Takei explicitly makes the connections between the politicised racism of the 1940s U.S. and that of the present day. I think in terms of writing style and clarity, this would work very well for a young adult audience.