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"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 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?"--… (more)
User reviews
The art work is very good but black and white. Wonderful addition to the story.
I already knew most of what was described as happening in the wider world and in the camps in general because I’ve already read so many books, seen films, seen interviews with people who were there.
It was the first I’d heard of the involvement
While I did already know a lot about what happened to those of Japanese ancestry and in the camps, I liked reading this personal story of George Takei as a young boy and of his parents and brother and sister. I’d actually heard him speak of this, but it was great reading a book with a more in depth account than what I’d already heard. I’ve always liked him. I first saw him on the original Start Trek tv show when I was 13 (I watched that first Star Trek show as regularly as I could) to his guest spot on The Big Bang Theory (I wish there had been more) and I always enjoy watching him being interviewed and I admire him as a person. He’s an effective activist for human rights causes.
The black and white and gray/brown tones illustrations do a great job of showing people’s facial expressions and depicting the story that’s told. They’re a bit too cartoonish for my personal taste but I enjoyed them in this book. I love the image that’s faded out that pairs with George saying he didn’t remember something, in this case their last Christmas at Tule Lake with his father already gone. There are only two color illustrations and they’re on the front and back covers.
My library has this shelved in their teen section so I did put it on my young adult shelf. Adult readers who normally don’t read young adult books should not let that label (or the fact that it’s a graphic book) put them off. This is just as much of a book for adult readers and many older preteen children will also enjoy it.
Sometimes I feel as though I can’t get enough of these stories. Every person’s story/family’s story is important and should be known. Kudos to the three authors and the one illustrator who created this book and especially to George Takei for sharing his story.
I love musicals. How could I never have heard of either Fly Blackbird! Or Allegiance?! I guess I have been out of the loop re musicals/plays for a long, long time.
I appreciated how times and several things post WWII are covered, including our recent immigration crisis and how people who seem to some like “others” are still being ill-treated. This is a perfect book for this time in our history.
I got a kick out of his interview audition for the show Star Trek. It really was a great show, and ahead of its time.
It was interesting to see George’s feelings about his father and his relationship with his father from the time he was a young boy until after his father’s death, and this account is a loving tribute to his father.
Heartbreaking and heartwarming and with important things to say about how we all view and treat one another, as well as a compelling memoir.
Anyway,
The illustrations are ideal for the telling. They're not overly ornate, but still carry some lovely detail. And the choice to tell the story in black-and-white frames was perfect.
This is a great addition to the story of Japanese internment, as well as an important biography of an integral part of the Star Trek universe, but its tame approach to the subject does present a much more neutral view than I think many with first-hand experience may have felt. They Called Us Enemy is a great introduction to this chapter of history, but it lacks the depth and clear indictment necessary to tell the full story.
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 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.
US citizen or not, every Japanese man, woman and child was taken from their homes and transported to
What makes this Graphic Novel even more compelling is the fact Mr. Takei was sent to camps accompanied by his parents, brother and sister. The illustrations, done in black and white, offer the perfect backdrop to Takei's words.
US history is not always pretty, sometimes even ugly but Takei reminds us that those who don't know history are bound to repeat it.
Takei previously discussed portions of this story in his 1994 memoir, To the Stars, and he has since given public talks at TED conventions and detailed his experiences in his musical, Allegiance. Here, he and his co-writers and artists draw upon all of that history to engage with this complicated material in a manner that will educate readers of all backgrounds in an accessible format. Takei engages with the ways people struggled for dignity, like his mother, who brought a sewing machine with her even though it was not allowed. He writes, “I realize now that besides comforting us… perhaps everything she did was also her own statement of defiance” (pg. 71, ellipses in original). She was able to defy the dehumanizing conditions and make them slightly more livable through her actions.
Takei was a young boy during internment and he writes, “I had to learn about the internment from my father, during our after-dinner conversations. That remains part of the problem – that we don’t know the unpleasant aspects of American history… and therefore we don’t learn the lesson those chapters have to teach us” (pg. 174). He first began to learn about the significance of internment during the 1960s, when he was becoming politically active, and he struggled to understand the mindset of both those who supported internment in the 1940s and the Japanese-Americans, feeling they should have protested like activists were doing in the 1960s. Takei’s father tried to explain to him some of the contradictions of time time to help him understand that there was no simple answer once the government had stripped Japanese-Americans of their legal rights. Describing FDR, Takei’s father said, “Roosevelt pulled us out of the Depression, and he did great things… but he was also a fallible human being… and he made a disastrous mistake that affected us calamitously” (pg. 196, ellipses in original). In engaging with this complicated narrative, Takei helps readers to understand how precious civil liberties are and how they must be protected.
Takei points out the dangers of forgetting this history, as the U.S. government currently imprisons Latin-American immigrants and asylum-seekers in similar conditions to those Japanese-Americans faced during internment (pg. 197). Further, while the U.S. Supreme Court recently repudiated the 1944 Korematsu decision that upheld the legality of internment, it did so as part of Trump v. Hawaii, which upheld the legality of a ban on immigration from majority-Muslim countries (pg. 200). Readers will find this an informative and cautionary book that bridges history and current events.
Takei ends the book with the events of his adult life as a politician and actor, highlighting the federal government’s gradual recognition of civil rights for all its citizens, but also warns in captions in a panel dated June 2018 depicting immigrants or asylum seekers in a cage that, “…old outrages have begun to resurface with brutal results.”
They Called Us Enemy is a graphic novel telling George Takei's experiences of being interned during the war. In it he not only details his childhood thoughts and feelings of the time, but also the thoughts and feelings of his family and neighbors that he didn't understand at the time. He also mentions some of his post-war experiences and the scars the internment left on his family. The delightful artwork of Harmony Becker adds to the storytelling, conveying the emotions of the tale to a deeper extent than simple text could do.
So now what book would I recommend to someone looking to learn about the Japanese Internement? Well, I'd honestly recommend both. If you limited me to one, I suppose I'd lean toward this one, and hope it would influence you to read the other.
--J.
It is amazing to me the way anyone of Japanese descent were forced into internment
George grew up behind the barbed wire, watched his father and mother struggle for the family, and observed more than he ever should have as a child. As an adult, George took a stand for his people and against the disgrace they suffered, he found his acting career, and a better life in the place that should have never been anything but home for himself and his family.
I highly recommend They Called Us Enemy, as we need to think of others and unite rather than divide. "...old outrages have begun to resurface..." (197)-scary to think injustices like this would ever happen in a place we call home.
Amazing story told as a graphic novel of George Takei’s childhood in the Japanese internment camps of WWII, and the lasting impact it had on him. Highly recommended for all ages. I don’t understand why books like this aren’t on
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.
This is a very disturbing book, although it does hold out hope for American democracy and principled individuals. It is a remarkable story which I highly recommend that everyone read.