{"id":12600,"date":"2022-05-11T10:20:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-11T15:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=12600"},"modified":"2022-05-06T06:43:49","modified_gmt":"2022-05-06T11:43:49","slug":"they-called-us-enemy-japanese-americans-in-wwii-by-george-takei-graphic-novel-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=12600","title":{"rendered":"THEY CALLED US ENEMY – Japanese-Americans in WWII, by George Takei (Graphic novel review)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Book<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Leaving their home and possessions,
not his parents’ choice\u2026
Why? Why!?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His mama’s purse is full of treats for five-year-old George and little Henry as they make the long train trip with her, Daddy, and baby Nancy from their home in Los Angeles to a camp in the woods of rural Arkansas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not a vacation place, but an internment camp with barbed wire fences<\/a>, unfamiliar foods, very little privacy, and their loyalty to the USA constantly in question – boring for kids, disheartening for adults.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later, George’s family was moved to a facility in the California desert at Tule Lake, another of several concentration camps<\/a> that housed 120,000 Japanese-Americans and Japanese who were forcibly removed from the West Coast during World War II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At war’s end, they hoped to move back to their homes and businesses, but their properties had been seized and sold to others\u2026 time to start all over again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will the US government deport George’s family?
How can they live in a country that hates them?
What will the future be like in a world after war? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a sobering portrayal of a dreadful time in America’s history, as seen through a child’s eyes and reinforced by decades of subtle and overt racism against Asian Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(One of the white co-authors had worked previously with Takei and pitched the idea of capturing his childhood memories as a graphic novel. The book’s artist is Japanese-American, creator of Himawari House<\/em> graphic novel that I recommended here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The well-known Star Trek actor and social activist continues to speak out against discrimination, racism, and the rights of all to love and be loved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What young childhood memory would you write or draw?
**kmm<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Book info<\/strong>: They Called Us Enemy \/ George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott; illustrated by Harmony Becker. Top Shelf Media, 2019. [author site<\/a>] [co-author site<\/a>] [co-author interview<\/a>] [illustrator interview<\/a>] [publisher site<\/a>] Personal copy; cover image courtesy of the publisher.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leaving their home and possessions,not his parents’ choice\u2026Why? Why!? His mama’s purse is full of treats for five-year-old George and little Henry as they make the long train trip with her, Daddy, and baby Nancy from their home in Los Angeles to a camp in the woods of rural Arkansas. Not a vacation place, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,237,80,50,23],"tags":[282,218,22,7,4,75,105,5,70,16,18,40,43,333,194,184,132,193,15,57,35,33,8,28,59],"class_list":["post-12600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biography","category-diverse-books","category-graphic-novel","category-historical","category-nonfiction","tag-arkansas","tag-asian-american","tag-behavior","tag-beliefs","tag-belonging","tag-brothers","tag-california","tag-coping","tag-crime","tag-determination","tag-family","tag-fathers","tag-growing-up","tag-japanese-american","tag-military","tag-mothers","tag-personal-finance","tag-prejudice","tag-relationships","tag-sisters","tag-surprises","tag-survival","tag-us-author","tag-villains","tag-war"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12600"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12969,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12600\/revisions\/12969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}