They Called Us Enemy

The book begins on the morning that soldiers come to take the Takeis to the train that will leave them at the horse stables, prior to their departure for Camp Rohwer. Executive Order 9066 requires that they vacate their home immediately. George does not understand what is happening yet. A panel shows his mother crying, but George does not know why she is upset.

The narrative then jumps forward to 2014 in Kyoto, where an adult George Takei is giving a TEDx talk about the experience. He introduces himself as a crewmember of the Starship Enterprise—from the television show Star Trek—and as an American citizen whose grandparents emigrated from Japan generations earlier.

George relates how his parents met. A series of illustrations show his father, Takekuma, and his mother, Fumiko, meeting in Los Angeles and getting married, which is followed by the births of George’s brother Henry, George, and his sister Nancy.

On December 7, 1941, the family hears the news about the attack on Pearl Harbor while they are decorating the Christmas tree. On Sunday morning Eleanor Roosevelt gives a speech to the nation. The president signs a “proclamation that every Japanese citizen inside the U.S. was now an ‘enemy alien’ and must follow strict regulations” (16).

The next day President Roosevelt speaks to Congress about the attack and the need to declare war on Japan. His speech is intercut with illustrations of American citizens reading about Pearl Harbor and looking suspiciously at Japanese citizens on the street.

Takei captions an illustration of Earl Warren, the attorney general of California, with the words: “In California at that time, the single most popular political position was ‘lock up the Japs’” (20). Warren and other politicians like him know that the Japanese loyalty question can be used for political gain. Warren and his ilk now define Japanese American citizens as Japanese alone. Fletcher Bowron, mayor of Los Angeles, says, “They are Japanese and nothing else…regardless of how many generations may have been born in America” (21).

On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066 into law. 9066 is convoluted in its language. It avoids referring to the eventual prisoners as Japanese and does not call the internment camps by name. Rather, it demarcates huge swaths of America as areas from which people can be excluded, by law. By excluding Japanese American citizens from the vast majority of the country, 9066 can funnel them into the internment camps without stating it in an unpalatable way. An illustration of the US map on Page 22 marks the entire West Coast as a military zone.

A series of illustrations show the Japanese citizens packing their homes. When they try to sell their belongings, Americans offer them paltry sums, knowing their Japanese neighbors have no choice but to accept.

On March 24 a new curfew on the West Coast requires the Japanese to stay indoors between 8:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. Government officials encourage citizens to inform on Japanese who disobey the new regulations. More restrictions follow. Just before the Takei family is slated for relocation, the narrative returns to the modern day.

On February 19, 2017, George gives a talk at the FDR Museum and Presidential Library. It is the 75th anniversary of Executive Order 9066.

The memoir returns to spring 1942, when the Takei family reports to a bus that takes them to a set of horse stables at the Santa Anita racetrack. George and his siblings grow sick under the unsanitary conditions. Next, a long train journey takes them to Arkansas. En route, George’s parents try to convince the children that they are going on a vacation. His mother tries to make the train trip fun for them with stories, candy, and games.

When the Takeis arrive at Camp Rohwer, they are housed in a barracks called Block 6. The heat in their cabin is oppressive, and there is no privacy. The children entertain themselves with games, pretending that there are dinosaurs outside the fences.