They Called Us Enemy

George Takei is the author of the book. He is a child when the US government orders that Japanese Americans be moved to internment camps. George is an ebullient, adventurous youth and, due to the efforts of his parents, the early days of the various camps he lives in are not overly grueling for him. Years later he comes to understand the injustice that his family and other Japanese Americans endured, which sparks his interest in social activism. George has a keen sense of justice and the heart of an activist. He uses his platform—beginning with Star Trek—to speak on behalf of the disenfranchised.

George is naive and innocent as a child, passionate as a teenager, but with a mistaken conviction in Japanese passivity, and wise as an adult. He represents the Sansei, the youngest generation in the camp, and how the views of those youths clashed with the traditions and decisions of their elders. Today, George is a beloved worldwide star and activist. He uses his immense social media platform to spread his message of inclusion, tolerance, love, and American idealism.

George’s father experiences the trauma of the camps in a different way than the rest of his family. He describes his feelings to a teenage George as an “irrational shame” (140) because he is responsible for his family’s well-being but he also takes them to the camps at the behest of the soldiers. Throughout the book Takekuma doubts his decision and wonders what, if anything, he could have done differently. The memoir depicts this feeling as common among the men of the Nisei and Issei, the middle and older generations in the camps.

Takekuma responds to internment by throwing himself into building community in the camps. His position as Block Manager—both in Camp Rohwer and Camp Tule Lake—grants him respect and influence that allows him to improve the lives of the prisoners to a degree.

Takekuma represents the resentment that older Japanese Americans hold toward the US government. He is young enough that he does not seem hopelessly out of touch with the younger generation but old enough to have credibility with the more senior Japanese Americans.

His eventual refusal to meet Eleanor Roosevelt shows that, while he is not outwardly hostile, he can never condone what was done to his family. To George, Takekuma is also a symbol of Japanese passivity. His father did not resist the US government’s orders. He openly admits that perhaps he should have, but he does not know what the cost would have been.