It was only years later, during talks with his father, that Takei was given insight into his past. As much as possible, Takei’s parents took pains to ensure their children were shielded from the reality of their situation, though Takei still relates traumas and humiliations (and a few funny stories). The manga-influenced art by Harmony Becker juxtaposes Takei’s childlike wonder over the “adventure” of the train trip with the stress and worry carried by his parents. Takei, who was five years old, along with his father, mother, and young siblings, was held from 1942 through January 1946, first at Camp Rohwer, Arkansas, and then later at Tule Lake, Calif. Japanese-Americans were classified as “Alien Enemy” after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and were forced to relocate to camps when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066.

They Called Us Enemy, George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott, authors Harmony Becker, illustrator, Top Shelf Productions, Softcover $19.Takei, best known for his role on Star Trek, relates the story of his family’s internment during WWII in this moving and layered graphic memoir. A cogent reminder that liberty and justice is not always for all, They Called Us Enemy explores a dark episode of America’s past as it dives into the heart of a pop culture icon. Takei-only four years old when his family was first imprisoned-recounts these years through the eyes of the child he was, setting the stage for how these experiences impacted his young adulthood, university years, and eventual Hollywood success. These American citizens were stripped of all but what they could carry, their homes and additional belongings seized and their assets frozen as they were marched at gunpoint away from the lives they had built and into the shadows of guard towers. The soft lines and subtle gray textures of the black-and-white illustrations sit at odds with the harrowing details they convey as Takei recounts his childhood spent as one of the 120,000 Japanese Americans held in American concentration camps during World War II. FOREWORD’S LIT HIT-INDIE BOOKS THAT’LL BLOW YOU AWAYĪ stirring call to learn from history we do not wish to repeat, George Takei’s graphic memoir They Called Us Enemy relays a story not easily forgotten, but too often ignored.

They called us enemy cover