They Called Us Enemy

In 1942, when George was almost 5 years old, his Japanese-American parents had their bank accounts frozen, and his father lost his business. Ordered out of their Los Angeles home with only what they could carry, they were forced to live in several different internment camps for four years. What was their crime? Their “crime” was that they were of Japanese ancestry and, thus, considered enemies by their own country – the United States of America. They, along with hundreds of thousands of other American citizens, were incarcerated in these camps.

Simple black and white illustrations convey George’s story to readers as he talks about his parents, and what it was like for them to navigate through years of being stabbed in the back by show more their own country. Their strength, fortitude and creativity were traits that got them through hard times, and enabled little George to feel as if he was on an adventure. Some of his memories of that time came through clearly, while at other times he relied on his father’s memories to flesh out his own.

America’s intolerance towards others because of how they looked during World War II comes across loudly and clearly, especially in the ways our current government has sought to keep out people of different nationalities. Philosopher George Santayana once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This phrase bears repeating because the rhetoric and events unfolding since 2016 in the United States are leading our nation into the gutter, where we spent too much time in years past. It’s time for a new narrative to take over our land.

I, along with thousands of other librarians, had the privilege of hearing George Takei share his story and talk about this book before it was released at the American Library Association (ALA) conference in Washington this past June. He was very passionate, telling us his parent’s generation kept their stories hidden from their children because they felt shame in how they’d been treated by their own government. It’s time for their stories to be told.

Copies of “They called us enemy” should be in every public and high school library in our nation, and used in book groups all across the country.

Highly recommended for ages 14 and older.

Book review link: https://shouldireaditornot.wordpress.com/2019/08/04/they-called-us-enemy-by-geor... 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

The story is told in a mostly straightforward manner, but under its simplicity is deep well of meaning, insight, and emotion. This is a horrific and frustrating chapter of American history, and the book does a good job of laying everything out and also showing all sides of the issues. It’s a powerful story, made even more so by the grace and sincerity with which Takei tells it. Truly inspirational, and a stark reminder that we are ever on the line of letting the worst in history repeat itself.

The author recounts his family’s experience in the Japanese internment camps during WW2, first being sent to Rowher and then Tule Lake. On one hand, it was all a great adventure for George and his younger brother. Only as an adult did he realize for his parents that it was “an anxiety-ridden voyage into a fearful unknown.” Effectively conveys the stresses everyone was under, the ironies of the loyalty questionnaire, the tension of not knowing what was to come next or where they would end up, the indignities suffered (keeping the train window shades down so the town wouldn’t see them, sleeping in horse stalls, the loyalty questionnaire). A bittersweet work, leavening the serious with the naivete of a child which only further show more highlights how outrageous the internment was. show less

This is an incredible graphic memoir about a really terrible, shameful time in American history. But also about so much more than that. George Takei was 5 years old when his family was forcibly relocated from the home they had built in California, to a series of armed camps built to hold "enemy aliens" after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1942. The perspective that Takei shares so so incredible, because it is a frank narrative of this horrible injustice, which was mainly borne by his parents, who, like good parents everywhere, did their best to shield their children from the agonies they must have been experiencing. He describes his internment as "a fun adventure," and it is a testament to childhood resiliency that spending years in show more prison barely seems to have tainted his development as a person. Except, of course, that he has spent his life raising awareness of the Japanese American internment -- this memoir being one more vehicle -- and leveraged his considerable fame into fulfilling that goal. There is so much here, so much pain and so much joy, it is almost impossible to describe in a short review. I did know something about the circumstances of the internment, but I didn't know that Japanese Americans, some of them second- and third-generation Americans, who had never even visited Japan, were given the "opportunity" to give up their American citizenship and be repatriated as Japanese. I didn't know that they were given the "opportunity" to serve the US military, after being declared "enemy aliens" and having all their property and assets seized, and being imprisoned with no hope or recourse. The whole thing was unspeakably vile. The only difference between what the US government did to the Japanese Americans and what the Nazis did to the Jews, is that the Japanese Americans weren't exterminated. But, Takei's story doesn't end in 1944 -- he describes all that his life has become since then, and shows that determination and conviction can go a long way to righting wrongs. It's a completely inspirational story. show less

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

The graphic novel They Called Us Enemy by George Takei should be required reading in American schools. Like March by John Lewis (another graphic novel) it opened my eyes to a part of American history that is either ignored and/or a footnote in history. Takei also made me realize how we've treated Muslim Americans, after 9/11, is no different to how we treated the Japanese after Pearl Harbor; if they look like the enemy then none of them can be trusted. Also parts of this graphic novel made me cry and parts made me smile.