Long before George Takei ventured to conquer new frontiers in "Star Trek," he woke up as a four-year-old boy and discovered that his native country was at war with his father's, and their whole family was forced to leave their...
home. In 1942, by order of President Franklin Roosevelt, all people of Japanese descent on the West Coast were sent to one of ten internment camps, where they were held for several years, hundreds or thousands of miles away from home. "They Called Us Enemies" is Takei's recounting of years behind barbed wire, the joys and horrors of growing up under legislative racism, the difficult choices his mother faced, his father's belief in democracy, and how this experience sowed the seeds for his remarkable future.
Long before George Takei ventured to conquer new frontiers in "Star Trek," he woke up as a four-year-old boy and discovered that his native country was at war with his father's, and their whole family was forced to leave their home. In 1942, by order of President Franklin Roosevelt, all people of Japanese descent on the West Coast were sent to one of ten internment camps, where they were held for several years, hundreds or thousands of miles away from home. "They Called Us Enemies" is Takei's recounting of years behind barbed wire, the joys and horrors of growing up under legislative racism, the difficult choices his mother faced, his father's belief in democracy, and how this experience sowed the seeds for his remarkable future.