Two loyalty questions become infamous: if people answer yes to both, they can join the military. This results in interned people being required to fill out a loyalty questionnaire with a ridiculous and racist premise: that Japanese Americans aren’t real Americans and must give up loyalty to Japan before they can serve. President Roosevelt decides that Japanese Americans should be able to serve-if they can prove their loyalty. In February of 1943, with white soldiers dying in droves, the military needs more soldiers. Though conditions in the camp are sometimes horrific, George has many happy memories of this time. They catch insects, look out for dinosaurs supposedly hiding beyond the barbed wire, and become the victims of a mean trick played by two older boys, Ford and Chevy. George and Henry throw themselves into discovering as much as they can about their new home. He soon becomes the block manager, which allows him special privileges like taking the family on a jeep ride outside the camp. Mama reveals that she smuggled in her sewing machine and sets about beautifying the family’s cabin, while Daddy begins to organize the community. For the adults, the journey is terrifying and demeaning.Īt Camp Rohwer, in Arkansas, the family settles in. George and Henry have no idea that it’s not normal to ride a train with armed guards posted on either end. Five-year-old George sees this as a grand adventure, since Mama packs a bag of sweets for them and Daddy says they’re going on vacation. Then, a few months later, the family boards a train bound for Arkansas. The family goes first to the Santa Anita Racetrack, where they live in a horse stall. Soldiers escort the Takei family-Mama, Daddy, George, and George’s little siblings Henry and Nancy Reiko-from their home in Los Angeles at gunpoint. This culminates in President Roosevelt signing Executive Order 9066, which creates the legal framework for the internment camps.
They insist that all Japanese Americans are loyal to the Japanese Empire and that Japanese Americans are conspiring against the U.S.
Mama and Daddy are worried, and rightly so-over the next few months, elected officials like California’s attorney general Earl Warren and Los Angeles mayor Fletcher Bowron purposefully stir up anti-Japanese sentiment. It tells listeners that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and the U.S. On December 7, 1941, as the Takei family decorates their Christmas tree, a news bulletin interrupts music on the radio. They Called Us Enemy is George Takei’s memoir of growing up in Japanese internment camps during World War II.
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