THEY CALLED US ENEMY (graphic novel) by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, and Steven Scott









Published in 2019 by Top Shelf Productions.
Illustrated by Harmony Becker.

Winner of the 2020 Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work.

Winner of the 2020 American Book Award.


George Takei is most famous for his part in the the original Star Trek series and the subsequent movies. But, over the last 20 years or so, Takei has been on a personal crusade to make sure that the Japanese Internment Camps are not forgotten. 

President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order in February of 1942 to place all of the Japanese on the west coast of the United States into camps because they could not be trusted not to help the Empire of Japan. This order applied to all Japanese, even if there was absolutely no reason to suspect them of doing anything at all to help Japan. Takei's family was included in this round up and this graphic novel is that story.

The graphic novel format is ideal for the story of a young man caught up in a situation he cannot possibly understand. Takei does a good job of going back and forth from his childhood perspective to multiple adult perspectives (Takei at various points in his life) in order to explain things better.

I rate this graphic novel 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THEY CALLED US ENEMY (graphic novel) by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, and Steven Scott.

Note: This book has been listed on multiple book ban lists - in Tennessee (use the searchable database because the list has more than 1,100 unique titles) in 2025 and in Pennsylvania right after it was published. I suppose that people are scared of learning America's history.

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