TOKYO – The incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans, including children, labeled as enemies during World War II is a historic experience that has traumatized and galvanized the Japanese American community over the decades.
For George Takei, who played Hikaru Sulu aboard the USS Enterprise in the “Star Trek” franchise, it’s a story he’s determined to keep telling every chance 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 fears that the lesson about the failure of democracy in the US has not really been learned, even today, including among Japanese Americans.
“The shame of hospitalization belongs to the government. They were the ones who did something unfair, cruel and inhumane. But it is often the victims of government actions themselves who bear the shame,” he said.
Takei, 87, has released a new picture book for children ages 6 to 9 and their parents called “My Lost Freedom.” It is illustrated in soft watercolors by Michelle Lee.
Takei was 4 years old when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, two months after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, declaring anyone of Japanese ancestry an enemy of the United States and forcibly removing them of your West. Coastal homes.
Takei spent the next three years behind barbed wire, guarded by armed soldiers, in three camps: the Santa Anita race track, which reeked of manure; Camp Rohwer in a swamp; and, from 1943, Tule Lake, a high-security segregation center for the “disloyal.”
“We were seen as different from other Americans. This was unfair. We were Americans, who had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor. Yet we were trapped behind barbed wire,” Takei writes in the book.
Throughout it all, his parents are portrayed as bearing hardship with calm dignity. Her mother sewed clothes for the children. They made chairs from scrap wood. They played baseball. They danced to Benny Goodman. For Christmas, they got a Santa Claus who looked Japanese.
Takei’s story is a remarkable one of resilience and pursuit of justice, repeated throughout the Japanese American experience.
It’s a story that has been told and retold in books such as “Farewell to Manzanar”, from 1973, by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston; “Only What We Could Carry”, edited by Lawson Fusao Inada more than 20 years ago; and “The Literature of Japanese-American Incarceration,” which was just released, compiled by Frank Abe and Floyd Cheung.
David Inoue, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Japanese American Citizens League, believes the message of Takei’s book remains relevant.
He said discrimination persists today, as seen in the anti-Asian attacks that have erupted with the COVID-19 pandemic. Inoue said her son was taunted at school just as he was growing up.
“One of the important things about having books like this is that it humanizes us. It tells stories about us that show that we are just like any other family. We like to play baseball. We have pets,” Inoue said.
Takei and his family were sent to Tule Lake in Northern California because his parents answered “No” to the main questions on a so-called loyalty questionnaire.
Question #27 asked if they were willing to serve in the U.S. military. Question #28 asked if they swore allegiance to the U.S. and would renounce allegiance to the Japanese Emperor. Both were controversial issues for people who had been deprived of their basic civil rights and labeled enemies.
“Dad and Mom thought both questions were stupid,” writes Takei 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 issue also had no solution, he said, because his parents felt there was no loyalty to Japan to report.
Tule Lake was the largest of the 10 camps, housing 18,000 people.
The young men who answered “Yes” became part of the all-Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which fought in Europe while their families remained incarcerated. The 442nd, with its famous motto “Go for Broke,” is the most decorated unit for its size and length of service in U.S. 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.”
After Japan surrendered, Takei and his family, like all Japanese Americans freed from the camps, were each given $25 and a one-way ticket to anywhere in the US. Takei’s family chose to start all over again in Los Angeles.
In 1988, the Civil Liberties Act – after years of effort and testimony from Japanese Americans, including Takei – granted $20,000 reparations and a formal presidential apology to all surviving U.S. citizens or immigrants who were legal residents of Japanese ancestry incarcerated during World War II.
Takei’s voice cracked as he remembered how his father didn’t live to see this.
He noted with pride the diversity portrayed in “Star Trek,” a TV series that began in the mid-1960s and gained a devoted following. There, the crew that flew together through the galaxies had diverse origins.
“Star Trek” writer, creator and producer Gene Roddenberry wanted to portray the turbulent times and civil rights movement in a TV show, but he had to do it metaphorically to make it acceptable, Takei said.
“Different people, different ideas, different tastes, different food. He wanted to make that statement. Each of the characters should represent a part of this planet,” said Takei.
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 prove a weakness.
“All people are fallible, even a great president like Roosevelt. He was overwhelmed by the hysteria of the time, by the racism of the time. And he signed Executive Order 9066,” Takei said.
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Yuri Kageyama is on X:
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