Review: They Called Us Enemy

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Rating 5 out 5 | Grade: A+; A moving cautionary tale



What is it about?

They called us Enemy is a biographical account of the childhood and life of Hollywood actor George Takei (Star Trek fame). In it, he recounts the time when he was just four years old. It was the time when Japan had attacked Pearl Harbour, and in retaliation the US declared war on Imperial Japan.

As an immediate consequence of this decision, a large number of Japanese, over 100000 people were uprooted from their homes across the nation, and taken to forced incarceration facilities, with limited facilities. Men, women, children, elders, who’d committed no formal crime, but the crime of being Japanese, the same ethnicity as the enemy.



Series of Events

The account starts when George is 4 years old. His younger brother Henry had just been born, and the USA, in retaliation to Pearl Harbour had declared war on the Japanese Empire.

Following which, growing anti-Japanese sentiment amongst the populace prompted then President Franklin Roosevelt to sign Executive order 9066 (which sounds like the inspiration for the Order 66 in Star Wars).

As per this executive order, the various local & federal governments forced the count of 120000 people of Asian, Japanese descent to be relocated to specialized military zones for fear of sedition, espionage & possible sabotage.



Entire families, communities and the diaspora of Japanese Americans residing in the nation, many of them legal born and bred American citizens, were incarcerated in these concentration camps.

For the duration of the war, families of civilians, with children and elders were made to spend their lives behind barbed wires and armed sentries, in abysmal living conditions, forced to deal with scarcity, hunger, disease, malnutrition, discrimination and other psychological trauma.



In a desperate bid to demonstrate their loyalty to the nation, many Japanese young men had volunteered for military service. They bled, suffered and died on foreign battlegrounds, while their families were living like serfs in prison-like complexes.



Even after the war, and these people being released, many of them had lost their lands, property, businesses, their entire identities and had to start from scratch to make a decent living.

It took longer still, for like-minded politicians and social rights activists from those of the persecuted to gain justice and an apology for the injustice which was committed on them. One which was fueled largely by racism and fear.

What is incredible is how, even after undergoing such demeaning, inhumane and discriminatory treatment, many of whom returned to their normal lives still were able to forgive and move forwards. And still are willing to uphold and respect the values that a democratic constitution provides them.


Thoughts:


Let’s just say the middle part of the 20th century was not a good time to be living. Wars in Europe, Wars in Asia, Wars in Africa, ethnic cleansing by the Nazis, horrendous war crimes by the Japanese Empire.

On the allied side, we have the Soviet Union where Stalin turned the entire Eastern front into a meat grinder, willing to drown the Germans in millions of bodies, all in a bid to outlast them. We have the British Empire draining pretty much all of their colonies (mostly India) of vital resources, such as goods, materials and manpower. Which had drastic consequences for these nations for decades to come. The Bengal famine of 1943 alone, caused close to 4 million deaths by starvation. All because Churchill considered the food Indians produced to be better spent feeding the Tommies on the western front. We’d need a whole different historical retelling to cover all that shit.

Then there is what the Americans were cooking up back home, during war time. Times of crisis and danger can cultivate fear in people. Loss of the lives of their loved ones, as well as threat to their national sovereignty can make people enraged. People who’re afraid & enraged look for someone to blame all this suffering unto.

There’s of course the Japs/ Tojos across the Pacific with whom they were about to enter into a brutal, bloody war. But there were also, much closer to home, the Immigrants who’d come to the new world 1-2 generations ago, with the promise of a better life. Well, if they look the role, talk the role, walk the role, why not assign them the role of being the face of their wretched enemy?

Which is what the mob of the time, driven by equal parts hate, racism, fear, patriotism and bigotry did. They wanted someone’s head on a stake and their next-door Japanese neighbors just happened to fit the bill.

So close to 120000 Japanese Americans, many of whom were legalized US citizens, were rounded up against their will, following Executive order 9066 and wheeled off to home brewed internment camps.

The life in these camps were horrific, degrading and outright inhumane. But, if one were to consider, it was leagues better than what the Nazis were cooking up in Europe. At least there was no forced labor, torture, ethnic cleansing, human experimentation or the gas chambers. Human suffering should not be equated as an account book. Of what f**ked up things the Axis did vs the s**t that the allies did. And the one who still had red on their ledger is the more evil guy.

Suffering of people each is a life that is altered, broken or lost. But misery is relative, and what Mr. Takei and his community had to suffer through, while inhumane was leagues better than the Jews, Slavs, and other undesirables as per the Nazis. Funny how averaging of human suffering is able to make some suffering less devastating than the other; then again, I suppose that’s life.

The Narrative:

Most of the narrative is told through the eyes of George Takei himself, either as recollections of his time in the camps, or information and context gleaned from conversation with his parents and other members of his community, and how they lived through these trying years.



In a way, it was fortunate for George, that he spent his childhood years in incarceration. A cold-hearted thing to say, but being a young child, he and his friends did not completely register the serious nature of their plight. As far as he was concerned, this was a long vacation, or field trips, surrounded by his friends, family and people whom he shared a heritage with.

His parents, Fumiko Emily, and Normal Takei, as well as the other adults of their delegations, were the ones who had to deal with the brunt of the physical and psychological trauma. While at the same time, put on a brave face, keep themselves busy, and do what was in their power to ensure the children had a life, as comfortable as their situation permitted.

Both of them rose up to the challenge. Normal Takei was not only a wise and caring father, but also a leader to the community, the spokesperson and representative who worked tirelessly for the needs of his family and people.



While Fumiko focused her incredible energies in turning the deplorable place that they had ended up in, to some semblance of a home. To ensure that their children had as normal a childhood, and that they were well educated, healthy in body and mind. They were in the truest sense of the world, what a caregiver or parent was meant to exemplify.

But that doesn’t take away from what people in their circumstances were made to choose, or not to choose. Just imagining the decisions that they and many others like them had to make. In choosing to give up their lives and livelihood to be taken away like prisoners to some unknown destination. To be forced to live like slaves or indentured men while having to provide for their families. To be forced to choose between the loyalty to their birth nation, vs their cultural identity as Japanese. And after all that, they still end up on the streets, with not a penny to their names, and another uncertain future on the horizon.

They say that the suffering one goes through and overcomes is a mark of a person’s true character, their true mettle. In that sense Norman Takei is someone whose example is meant to be emulated. Despite what his nation forced upon him and his community, as well as learning of what had transpired back in Japan, with Nagasaki & Hiroshima, losing loved ones and facing decades worth of prejudice and racism, Takei senior still professed his belief in the democratic process.

He and many others were willing to forgive, and the injustices subjected upon them, to teach the next generation to have a greater say and voice in the working of the nation. To fight for and obtain justice on behalf of all those who suffered, and for the sake of humanity and equality for all. In one of the more profound sections of the memoir, Norman Takei talks to a young George because he still holds conviction to the democratic way of governance. His words are something which should be taken to heart.

Which makes it all the more sorrowful when one learns how he died before seeing the Government officially acknowledge the wrongdoings of the past and seek forgiveness to the community. But his spirit lives on in the lives he helped shape.



More tragic and heroic are the tales of those Japanese Americans, who joined the military to fight on behalf of the same nation that prosecuted them, all so they may prove their loyalty, while their families were incarcerated. Which is not something any nation should enforce upon its citizens. It reminded me of that one scene from the Karate Kid, with Mr. Miyagi losing his child in the Manzanar Camp.

The whole account of the incarceration of the Takei’s as well as the other Japanese, runs an interesting contrast with a similar account, as told in the graphic novel Maus, by Art Spiegelman, which again was an account based on his father’s recollections from the Nazi concentration camp. Though things here are nowhere near as dangerous or gruesome.


The Art

There is nothing much to point out as critique for the art, as this is not an adaptation where the art is the primary focus. The subject matter is relevant and empathetic enough to hold our attention.

Having said that, I do love and appreciate the simple manga-esque character design, coloring and panel structuring, which is quite simplistic yet on focus. With a minimalistic approach, the illustrators are still able to capture and convey the plethora of emotional turmoil that the people are going through. Be it fear, pain, anxiousness, sorrow, happiness, resignation or grim-faced determination.



In particular, it’s able to bring out the blissful ignorance of the children, who, much like Bruno & Shmuel in the Boy with the striped pajamas, are able to be spared the grim reality of their surroundings. As kids ought to, they play around, scuffle, cry and indulge in the imaginary world of their own making.



Much of the complex emotions of the story are portrayed through George's parents, who, without speaking much are able to communicate the helplessness of their situation. Which is a point of merit to how effective the illustrations are at drawing your attention.



In Conclusion, They Call us Enemy, featuring the life of George Takei and his family, is a poignant work, which sheds focus on one of lesser-known injustices suffered during the world war. One which we all should be educated in, as many of the things portrayed in the memoir are still repeated and relevant to this day. So, pick it up, read it, and ponder upon it.




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