TOKYO (AP) — The incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americansincluding children, labeled as enemies during World War II is a historical experience that has traumatized and galvanized the Japanese American community over the decades.
For George Takei, who plays Hikaru Sulu aboard the USS Enterprise in the “Star Trek” franchise, it’s a story he’s determined to continue telling at every opportunity he gets.
“I consider it my mission in life to educate Americans about this chapter of American history,” he said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.
He worries that the lesson about the failure of American democracy hasn’t really been learned even today, including among Japanese Americans.
“The shame of internment belongs to the government. They are the ones who committed unjust, cruel and inhumane acts. But very often, the victims of government actions shoulder the shame themselves,” he said.
Takei, 87, has a new picture book for children aged 6 to 9 and their parents, entitled “My lost freedom”. It is illustrated with soft watercolors by Michelle Lee.
A copy of “My Lost Freedom,” a children’s book by George Takei, is displayed in the “Being Asian in America” section of a Kinokuniya bookstore specializing in the sale of books and magazines written in foreign languages in the neighborhood of Shinjuku to Tokyo. , Wednesday May 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)
Takei was 4 years old when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, two months after the Japanese arrived. bombing of Pearl Harbordeclaring everyone of Japanese ancestry an enemy of the United States and forcibly removing them from their homes on the West Coast.
Takei spent the next three years behind barbed wire, guarded by soldiers armed with rifles, in three camps: Santa Anita Racetrack, which stank of manure; Camp Rohwer in a swamp; and, from 1943, Tule Lake, a high-security segregation center for “disloyals.”
“We were seen as different from other Americans. It was unfair. We were Americans and had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor. Yet we were imprisoned behind barbed wire,” Takei writes in the book.
Throughout it all, his parents are portrayed as enduring the hardships with quiet dignity. Her mother sewed clothes for the children. They made chairs from scraps of wood. They were playing baseball. They danced to Benny Goodman. For Christmas, they had a Japanese-looking Santa Claus.
Takei’s story is a remarkable tale of resilience and the quest for justice, repeated throughout the Japanese-American experience.
It’s a story that has been told and retold in books like Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston’s “Farewell to Manzanar” from 1973; “Only What We Could Carry,” edited by Lawson Fusao Inada more than 20 years ago; and the just-released “The Literature on Japanese American Incarceration,” compiled by Frank Abe and Floyd Cheung.
David Inoue, executive director of the League of Japanese American Citizens, headquartered in Washington, D.C., believes the message of Takei’s book remains relevant today.
He said discrimination persists today, as shown in Anti-Asian attacks that erupted with the COVID-19 pandemic. Inoue said her son was taunted at school in the same way he was growing up.
“One of the important things about having books like this is that they humanize us. He tells stories about us that show we are just like any other family. We love playing baseball. We have pets,” Inoue said.
Takei and his family were sent to Tule Lake in northern California because his parents answered “no” to key questions on a so-called loyalty questionnaire.
Question No. 27 asked if they were willing to serve in the U.S. armed forces. Question #28 asked if they pledged allegiance to the United States and would renounce their allegiance to the Emperor of Japan. Both were controversial issues for people who have been deprived of their basic civil rights and labeled as enemies.
“Dad and Mom both thought the two questions were stupid,” Takei writes in “My Lost Freedom.”
“The only honest answers were no and no.”
Takei said the questions did not explain what would happen to families with young children. The second question was also a dead end, he said, because his parents felt there was no loyalty to Japan to denounce.
Tule Lake was the largest of the 10 camps, housing 18,000 people.
The young men who answered “Yes” joined the all-Japanese and American 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which fought in Europe while their families remained incarcerated. The 442, with its famous motto “Go for Broke,” is the most decorated unit of its size and length of service in American military history.
“They were determined to prove themselves and get their families out of the barbed wire,” Takei said. “They are our heroes. I know I owe them a lot.
FILE – Actor George Takei, who played Helmsman Sulu in the original “Star Trek” television series, makes the “live long and prosper” gesture in front of a model of the USS Enterprise starship during a ‘an exhibit at the Tech Museum in San Jose, California, October 20, 2009. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)
After the surrender of Japan, Takei and his family, like all Japanese Americans released from campswere each given $25 and a one-way ticket to anywhere in the United States. Takei’s family chose to start over in Los Angeles.
In 1988, the Civil Liberties Act — after years of effort and testimony from Japanese Americans, including Takei — obtained a $20,000 reparation and a formal presidential apology to every surviving U.S. citizen or legal resident immigrant of Japanese ancestry incarcerated during World War II.
Takei’s voice choked as he remembered that his father had not lived to see him.
He noted with pride the diversity represented in “Star Trek,” a television series that debuted in the mid-1960s and developed a fervent following. There, the crew who flew together across the galaxies were of diverse origins.
“Star Trek” writer, creator and producer Gene Roddenberry wanted to depict turbulent times and the civil rights movement in a TV show, but he had to do it metaphorically for it to be acceptable, Takei said .
“Different people, different ideas, different tastes, different food. He wanted to make this statement. Each of the characters was meant to represent a part of this planet,” Takei said.
Takei recalled how his father taught him that government “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” as Abraham Lincoln said in his Gettysburg Address, could also be a weakness.
“Everyone is fallible, even a great president like Roosevelt. He was struck by the hysteria of the time, the racism of the time. And he signed Executive Order 9066,” Takei said.
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Yuri Kageyama is on X: https://twitter.com/yurikageyama