Book Review: They Call Us Enemy by G. Takei et al.

They Call Us Enemy written by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, and Steven Scott, art by Harmony Becker

George Takei, most famous for playing Sulu on Star Trek, tells the story of his childhood during World War II. He grew up in Los Angeles--his dad was a Japanese immigrant and his mother was a first-generation American. When Pearl Harbor was bombed, the government's attitude (along with a good deal of the country) shifted into a paranoid mistrust. Takei's family was forced into an internment camp in Arkansas. They lived under difficult conditions. The hardest part to take was that they, as loyal citizens, were assumed to be "alien enemies." The federal government only made matters worse by passing a law that "allowed" Japanese-Americans to revoke their loyalty to America and return to Japan. The story has been neglected for a long time and is well worth learning about.

The book does an excellent job of presenting the facts of the situation, told through the eyes of a child who experienced the situation without realizing fully what was going on until he was much older. Happily, Takei tells the tale in full maturity, without the histrionics of youth who hang on to anger without even trying to understand other points of view. Takei shows his teenage self (years after the internment) raging at his father for accepting such indignities. The author Takei understands the sacrifices his father made to keep his family together. At the end of the book, he does suggest that contemporary events are making the same mistakes again.

Highly recommended as an evenhanded and personal telling of a grave error our country made. Hopefully we will learn from it.