They Called Us Enemy

Former Star Trek actor George Takei wrote this graphic memoir about his family's experience being deported to an internment camp for Japanese Americans in the 1940s. Takei lived in two camps between the ages of four and eight. The story covers the moment the police knocked on his door to pick them up until they were released.

Takei is just four when his father wakes him and his younger brother up and tells them to get dressed quickly and wait for him in the living room. They board a bus, then train to their ultimate destination, the Rohwer Camp in Arkansas.  They initially spend time living in a horse stall at the Santa Anita Racetrack before being herded onto a train eastward to Arkansas. The author actually began kindergarten at Santa Anita. Takei felt it all was an adventure, as did the other kids who were traveling with their families.

The California Attorney General, Earl Warren, decided to follow the popular politics of the day to "lock up the Japs," as a way to become Governor. He succeeded (and later became Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court) by stating that the lack of evidence against the Japanese Americans was actually evidence because they were inscrutable. They were "nonassimilable" and therefore "alien enemies."  Note that before the Pearl Harbor attack a person born in Japan could not become an American citizen. These arguments seemed cruel because if an immigrant is prohibited by law from becoming a citizen their hands were tied if a war broke out with their homeland. In the time period between the attack and the beginning of the internment the Japanese Americans were forced to sell their possessions at a a fraction of their value because the U. S. government froze their bank accounts and financial assets.

The family was only allowed to take what they could carry with them to the camp. They were forced to leave behind a two story home in Los Angeles and all of their possessions. They lived at Rohwer until the author's parents were designated "no-nos."  A "no-no" is a person who answered "no" to questions 27 and 28 on a mandatory questionnaire that was distributed to all of the prisoners at the camps. Most of the questions concerned relatives in Japan, criminal records, membership in organizations, foreign investments and magazine reading habits. Question 27 was "are you willing to serve in the armed forces on combat duty," and question 28 was "will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States..." The Japanese were outraged at the loyalty questions, particularly 28. 28 rested on the false premise that they had a racial allegiance to the emporer of Japan. Answering yes to this question meant that they had a loyalty to give up. The Takei family was then sent to one of the other ten internment camps, Tule Lake in Northern California. Tule Lake housed the most disloyal people and had tanks and three barbed wires around the camp to "protect" them.

This story was told well. It alternated between the 1940s and the present time period with the author speaking as a senior citizen about his internment. The detailed black and white drawings were done by Harmony Becker.  She advanced the story with her portraiture of the adults showing their emotions on their faces. With the kids being kids and finding fun everywhere, the seriousness of the internment is shown on the adults' faces and in their postures.

Takei correlates his experience with that of today's migrant children being kept in cages at our southern border. He has said in interviews that he understands how those children feel because he grew up isolated behind barbed wire. When Takei saw the pictures on TV of children being held in cages the old outrage he once felt reemerged. He decided to use a medium for telling his story that most of us first experienced as children-comic books-to help readers see it through the eyes of the child he once was.  I thought this was a brilliant idea.

I learned a few new facts about this part of American history and can see that it was close to being repeated with the Muslim ban and anti-immigration stance we have recently debated nationally. Takei's story is timely.

Highly recommended!