They Called Us Enemy
New York Times Bestseller! Discover this award-winning masterpiece before the release of George Takei's deeply personal follow-up, It Rhymes With Takei (June 2025).
A stunning graphic memoir recounting actor/author/activist George Takei's childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps during World War II. Experience the forces that shaped an American icon -- and America itself -- in this gripping tale of courage, country, loyalty, and love.
George Takei has captured hearts and minds worldwide with his captivating stage presence and outspoken commitment to equal rights. But long before he braved new frontiers in Star Trek, he woke up as a four-year-old boy to find his own birth country at war with his father's -- and their entire family forced from their home into an uncertain future.
In 1942, at the order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, every person of Japanese descent on the west coast was rounded up and shipped to one of ten "relocation centers," hundreds or thousands of miles from home, where they would be held for years under armed guard.
They Called Us Enemy is Takei's firsthand account of those years behind barbed wire, the joys and terrors of growing up under legalized racism, his mother's hard choices, his father's faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future.
What does it mean to be American? Who gets to decide? When the world is against you, what can one person do? To answer these questions, George Takei joins co-writers Justin Eisinger & Steven Scott and artist Harmony Becker for the journey of a lifetime.
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Community Reviews
The comic book pretty much presents the George Takei story from the perspective of the internment camps FDR put the Japanese people in. Which is ironic as FDR himself was a very left-wing president and Takei is a very progressive left-winger. The book even ends on a note praising Obama and defending Muslims in Muslim countries. Takei sees the right to arrive to USA from a Muslim country similar as the rights of the Japanese people in USA during WW2.
We go over his family internment in various camps and how his father worked with the Americans who ran the camp. Then the tiny bit of information flow pertaining to WW2 that Takei even had the chance to understand and recall. And then his acting career, gay husband, and progressive activism on Twitter and working with politicians. He was a horrible actor, he has a gay flair to him that's good on screen, but just couldn't act. Despite this the original Star Trek has a certain charm to it and a colorful set which I love. The plot and acting is below par and it's unfortunately episodic. Rather he cleverly moved away from acting into activism as it's an easier gig. Yet his talents here are frankly even lower. As an actor he doesn't really have advanced knowledge in geopolitics or race issues. Rather he uses his own childhood experience to proclaim himself correct on moral issues. But if you follow him on Twitter you'll see he doesn't quite deliver new depth or any clever point of view rather he loves bickering and being seen and all his debates devolve into shouting pro progressive values. Even his internment camps speeches feel hollow as the book ends up defending FDR. Of course you can't blame a fellow progressive!
The book itself starts out with and ends with such extreme progressive value judgement where it clearly feels like fake and forced history. Often with White people being openly racist in exaggerated ways that feel like movie scenes more than anything that really happened. Which drags it down. The middle part is very strong though. Clean text and drawings and finally a comic that's not 50% text - thank the lord. This is simple to read. It was a fun read, but history wise it's of course extremely biased and Takei would not be able to even speak a whole sentence without extreme bias so this is no surprise. It's short enough so that I won't give it 2 or 3 stars. But I really want to read a more neutral story about the FDR mistake. Or maybe even see it from the other side. Only because anyone reading this can see this is not really the full story. Takei tells a strong story about how White people are racist and made his life hard. Martin Luther King, Obama, and modern Muslim immigrants are the heroes. Even FDR is not a bad guy as such. Trump and some politicians during WW2 who "tricked" FDR are the bad guys in this story. Yet reading between the lines tells a different story. FDR was maybe a bit more to blame. The Trump "Muslim ban" is called that in progressive media Takei watches. But that's propaganda. You can't ban Muslims. He banned immigration from certain badly run countries mainly from the Middle East and Africa and those nations are typically Muslim. But they all have extreme political and terrorist issues and Trump didn't ban immigrants from many other Muslim nations. Maybe he intended it as a Muslim ban, but you can't conclusively show this or rename it that. And it's misleading to not show the full picture. But Takei has attacked Trump so much on Twitter you really can't take him seriously as a political pundit. He's as biased as Trump or FDR. I don't really respect either one of them in this area. But I did enjoy some of the original Star Wars so I acknowledge Takei for that work. I just don't see the "Muslim ban" as relevant for the internment camp debate. The interment camp ordeal is extremely negative. The "Muslim ban" is against people who are not in USA.
We go over his family internment in various camps and how his father worked with the Americans who ran the camp. Then the tiny bit of information flow pertaining to WW2 that Takei even had the chance to understand and recall. And then his acting career, gay husband, and progressive activism on Twitter and working with politicians. He was a horrible actor, he has a gay flair to him that's good on screen, but just couldn't act. Despite this the original Star Trek has a certain charm to it and a colorful set which I love. The plot and acting is below par and it's unfortunately episodic. Rather he cleverly moved away from acting into activism as it's an easier gig. Yet his talents here are frankly even lower. As an actor he doesn't really have advanced knowledge in geopolitics or race issues. Rather he uses his own childhood experience to proclaim himself correct on moral issues. But if you follow him on Twitter you'll see he doesn't quite deliver new depth or any clever point of view rather he loves bickering and being seen and all his debates devolve into shouting pro progressive values. Even his internment camps speeches feel hollow as the book ends up defending FDR. Of course you can't blame a fellow progressive!
The book itself starts out with and ends with such extreme progressive value judgement where it clearly feels like fake and forced history. Often with White people being openly racist in exaggerated ways that feel like movie scenes more than anything that really happened. Which drags it down. The middle part is very strong though. Clean text and drawings and finally a comic that's not 50% text - thank the lord. This is simple to read. It was a fun read, but history wise it's of course extremely biased and Takei would not be able to even speak a whole sentence without extreme bias so this is no surprise. It's short enough so that I won't give it 2 or 3 stars. But I really want to read a more neutral story about the FDR mistake. Or maybe even see it from the other side. Only because anyone reading this can see this is not really the full story. Takei tells a strong story about how White people are racist and made his life hard. Martin Luther King, Obama, and modern Muslim immigrants are the heroes. Even FDR is not a bad guy as such. Trump and some politicians during WW2 who "tricked" FDR are the bad guys in this story. Yet reading between the lines tells a different story. FDR was maybe a bit more to blame. The Trump "Muslim ban" is called that in progressive media Takei watches. But that's propaganda. You can't ban Muslims. He banned immigration from certain badly run countries mainly from the Middle East and Africa and those nations are typically Muslim. But they all have extreme political and terrorist issues and Trump didn't ban immigrants from many other Muslim nations. Maybe he intended it as a Muslim ban, but you can't conclusively show this or rename it that. And it's misleading to not show the full picture. But Takei has attacked Trump so much on Twitter you really can't take him seriously as a political pundit. He's as biased as Trump or FDR. I don't really respect either one of them in this area. But I did enjoy some of the original Star Wars so I acknowledge Takei for that work. I just don't see the "Muslim ban" as relevant for the internment camp debate. The interment camp ordeal is extremely negative. The "Muslim ban" is against people who are not in USA.
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