They Called Us Enemy by George Takei

They Called Us Enemy is the graphic memoir for actor/author/activist George Takei who along with his family endured imprisonment in a Japanese internment camp during World War II.

George and his younger brother, Henry are woken up during the night by their father and told to get dressed quickly. As they are packing, police come to the door and tell George's father, Takekuma Norma Takei, that under Executive Order 9066, the must leave immediately. He is given ten minutes to pack. Both George and Henry do not understand and watch their mother tearfully carry their baby sister out of the house.

George, speaking at a TEDxKyoto talk in Japan in 2014, tells the audience he was never able to forget that scene and goes on to describe what led to it and what happened afterwards. Takei tells the audience he is a veteran of the Starship Enterprise whose mission was "to explore strange new worlds, seek out new live and new civilizations...to boldly go where no one has gone before." Takei was "the grandson of immigrants who went to America. Boldly going to a strange new world."

His father, Takekuma Norman Takei, was born in Yamanshi, Japan and came to America as a teenager. He attended high school and then opened a dry-cleaning business in Los Angeles. Takei's mother, Fumiko Emily Nakamura was born in Florin, California and educated in Japan to avoid school segregation. Takekuma and Fumiko married in Los Angeles and George was born in 1937.

The Takei's had lost their first child at three months of age. They named George after King George VI of England. Henry came next, named after Henry VIII, followed by a girl they named Nancy Reiko after a beautiful woman the Takei's knew.

But on Sunday, December 7, 1941, their lives would change forever. While preparing for Christmas, the Takei family learned of the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. That day, President Roosevelt signed a proclamation declaring adult Japanese citizens as "alien enemies". They would now have to follow strict regulations.

In a speech broadcast over the radio, the nation listened as Roosevelt asked Congress to declare a state of war with Japan because of the attack on the Hawaiian Islands. Earl Warren, Attorney General of California, aspiring to be Governor of California, made very racist remarks about the Japanese Americans. Because there was no evidence of Japanese spying, sabotage or fifth column activities and because the Japanese Americans are "inscrutable", they should be locked up before they do anything! The major of Los Angeles, Fletcher Bowron testified that the Japanese would always be loyal to Japan no matter how many generations have been in the United States.

The result was that on February 19, 1942, the President signed Executive Order 9066. It authorized the military to create areas "from which any or all persons may be excluded." It never specifically identified "Japanese" Americans or mentioned "camps"  but it soon became obvious that it was people of Japanese heritage who were targeted.

In the spring of 1942, civilian exclusion orders were posted, ordering all Japanese living in specific districts "to report to their designated landmark for processing and removal." The bombing of Pearl Harbor had led to the U.S. Government freezing bank accounts and financial assets of Japanese Americans. George Takei's parents found their bank account frozen. With the signing of E.O. 9066, the property and business of almost all Japanese Americans was seized. Japanese farmers had their crops seized by private citizens.

Attorney General Warren was unsympathetic to their plight. Lt. General John L. Dewitt, Commander of the Western Defense Command stated that the implementation of a curfew for all people of Japanese ancestry was to prevent sabotage and fifth column activities. 

It wasn't long before George and his family were forced to leave their home. In the spring of 1942, they were taken by bus to the Santa Ana Racetrack and made to live in the stables that reeked of horse manure. It was the beginning of a journey that would see them sent by train across the country to Camp Rohwer in Arkansas, and to the notorious Camp Lake Tule. 

Discussion

 

In They Called Us Enemy, actor and author, George Takei takes readers through his family's loss of all their possessions and family business, their imprisonment in two different camps: Camp Rohwer in Arkansas and then in Camp Tule Lake, notorious for this three layers of barbed wire, machine gun towers and tanks.  He also relates how his parents were "no-no's" - Japanese Americans who responded "No-No" on the loyalty questionnaire. This mandatory questionnaire attempted to determine the loyalty of Japanese Americans the government had imprisoned. America needed soldiers and in 1943, even Japanese Americans would do. Like many Japanese Americans, George Takei's parents answered no to two questions regarding their willingness to serve in the US Armed Forces and to swear allegiance to the United States of America.

George also attempts to convey to readers how the war and imprisonment affected his parents. His parents were shocked by the conditions they were required to endure, but knew they were powerless to change things. His mother worked hard to take special care of the children, and her act of resistance was to save her beloved sewing machine! Takei's  mother was devastated to learn of the bombing of Hiroshima, where her parents lived. Reports of the destruction were incomprehensible and left many without hope for their loved ones. In the post-war period, when the Takei's had to start completely over, without any government help, they endured living first on skid row and then in rundown lodgings in Los Angeles. They were resourceful and determined.

Takei notes that many of his memories were coloured by the innocence of childhood but once the war was over and he began to grow up, the reality of what the camps were and what they represented began to become apparent. As he went through the American school system, George began to notice that American history books never mentioned the imprisonment of thousands of Americans of Japanese ancestry, nor the loss of all of their possessions and businesses. There was no reflection on what had happened - after all America and its allies had won the war. But in this graphic book memoir, George Takei effectively shows that the reaction by key political figures was racist and a form of hysteria and fear that was completely unwarranted.

Takei acknowledges the major influence his father had on him especially after the war as he was growing up. Takei's father was actively involved in the camps, helping his fellow prisoners and attempting to make their lives easier. At first Takei criticized his father for what he saw as a lack of action and passivity in not standing up to the order sending them to the camps. He writes that his arrogant outburst demonstrated that he did not understand "...a man who knew the anguish of those dark internment years more intensely than that boy could ever understand. " Despite what happened, all the loss and hardship his father had endured, Takei's father was a firm believer in participatory democracy and took the time to fill in the gaps that his young son missed during those years. His belief in the American form of democracy and that people can effect change, was a huge influence on George Takei's own life.

They Called Us Enemy is important memoir for all people.  The events George Takei and his family experienced, along with thousands of fellow Japanese Americans, demonstrate what can happen when hate and racism, fueled by hysteria take hold. Prejudice against people of Asian ethnicity had existed unchecked for decades in the United States. Pearl Harbor became the catalyst for government leaders to act in ways that dehumanized an entire race of people, stripping them of their Constitutional rights. The imprisonment of over one hundred, twenty thousand Japanese Americans reminds us that these events can happen again unless we all work to counter discrimination in all forms. Takei's lesson, learned from his father, is that ordinary people working together within the framework of democracy can work to make the world a better place for all.

 

Book Details:

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei
Marietta, GA: Top Shelf Productions     2019

204 pp.