They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott, and Harmony Becker

They Called Us Enemy is a powerful graphic novel that tells the story of George Takei and his childhood spent in the concentration camps that were set up for Japanese during WWII.  I have spent my lifetime enjoying George Takei in Star Trek the original series and the movies.  As Takei has moved into social media, I have enjoyed his humor as well as his activism.

I ordered this book from the Scholastic Book order to read with my eleven-year-old son Daniel.  He loves historical fiction and graphic novels so it seemed like a great fit for him.  We both enjoyed the novel.  Daniel says some other historical fiction novels that he has been trying to read have been hard to understand and get into, but that this novel he was able to really grasp the essence of the story and enjoy it.  We both were appalled learning that 120,000 Japanese American families were imprisoned during WWII.  Besides their freedom, their homes and businesses were taken away from them as well.  It’s hard to envision that our country would treat its own citizens this way, but the book makes a compelling argument at the end that we are going back to this with our treatment of refugees at the border.  The illustrations were wonderful and compelling.

I also enjoyed that Takei also talked briefly about how he got involved in Star Trek as well.  I am a Star Trek superfan.

Overall, They Called Us Enemy is an important first-person account of a dark period of American history.