They Called Us Enemy by George Takei
Publisher Information: Mariette, GA: Top Shelf Productions, an imprint of IDW Publishing, 2019
Summary: This is outstanding graphic memoir recounts with nostalgia and growing outrage (author, actor, activist) George Takei's childhood experiences in American internment camps during World War II.
George woke up as a four-year-old boy to find that his own birth country, America, was at war with is father's (Japan). He and his family were forced out of their California home and sent to Camp Rohwer in Arkansas. Initially, George recalls this uncertain time with some affection, fondness and sense of adventure even as President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942 ordered every person of Japanese descent to be rounded up and shipped to one of ten relocation centers many miles from their homes where they would be for years under armed guard.
As George grows older and his family is relocated to another camp with harsher conditions, it seems less of an adventure and more of the degrading, unjust, discriminatory treatment that it was. Through it all, George and his family maintain their resiliency, dignity and humanity.
Takei's memoir blends his naive, childhood memories with the wisdom, knowledge, realizations and reflections of adulthood and demonstrates how these experiences profoundly shaped his future.
Book Trailer:
Read-a-Likes:
Internment by Samira Ahmed
Within These Lines by Stepahnie Morrill
Citizen 13660 by Mine Okubo
A Diamond in the Desert by Kathryn Fitsmaurice
Dust of Eden by Mariko Nagai
Four-Four-Two by Dian Hughes
This Light Between Us: a novel of World War II by Andrew Fukuda
This Time Will Be Different by Misa Sugiura
The War Outside by Monica Hesse
Uprooted: the Japanese American Experience During World War II by Albert Martin
Links of Interest:
Author website: georgetakei.com
Educator's guide: HERE
Discussion questions: HERE
Interview with George Takei: HERE
Ocean State Libraries catalog listing contains a book profile, professional reviews, reader reveiws, reading level, subject headings, and awards. Scroll down to view all the content on the page.
Classic catalog version and Encore catalog version