George Takei describes his experience in a Japanese internment camp

Actor and activist George Takeirecently made an appearanceon Democracy Now ! where , in addition to discussing Arizona ’s recent anti - LGBTQ Federal Reserve note and his character as Mr. Sulu , he talked about his family ’s experience inside a Japanese internment camp during the Second World War .

The snip above is about seven minutes long , but here ’s the transcript :

AMY GOODMAN : So , you were hold in ?

GEORGE TAKEI : Los Angeles .

AMY GOODMAN : And yet , at the years of eight , you were interned ?

GEORGE TAKEI : No , at the years of five .

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AMY GOODMAN : At the age of five .

GEORGE TAKEI : We came out when I was eight .

AMY GOODMAN : So , talk about that . What take place ?

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GEORGE TAKEI : Yes , well , you know , it was n’t just my birth in the U.S. My mother was support in Sacramento , California . My Padre was a San Franciscan . They were Northern Californians . And they met in Los Angeles , so I was born in Southern California . But there ’s no Second Earl of Guilford - south divide in our folk . We ’re Americans . We were and are — my parents have draw now , but we were citizens of this country . We had nothing to do with the state of war . We just happened to look like the the great unwashed that bomb Pearl Harbor . But without charges , without trial , without due process — the primal mainstay of our justness organisation — we were summarily rounded up , all Japanese Americans on the West Coast , where we were primarily resident , and sent off to 10 barb conducting wire internment camps — prison house camps , really , with sentry pillar , machine ordnance point at us — in some of the most barren places in this commonwealth : the wasteland of Wyoming , Idaho , Utah , Colorado , the blistering live desert of Arizona , of all places , in opprobrious tarpaper barrack . And our family was send off two - thirds of the room across the state , the farthest east , in the swamps of Arkansas .

And it ’s from this experience that , when I was a adolescent , my father assure me that our democracy is very fragile , but it is a true people ’s majority rule , both as strong and as great as the people can be , but it is also as weak as people are . And that ’s why skilful people have to be actively engaged in the operation , sometimes holding republic ’s feet to the fire , in ordering to make it a sound , truer democracy .

JUAN GONZÁLEZ : If I ’m not mistaken , the regulator of California back then during the internment process was Earl Warren , who later became a justice of the Supreme Court , perhaps one of the most liberal justice , but he supported those efforts back then .

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GEORGE TAKEI : Well , this illustrates the frenzy that move throughout the country . Actually , Earl Warren was the attorney superior general of the country of California at that time .

JUAN GONZÁLEZ : Oh , attorney full general , proper .

GEORGE TAKEI : He took an oath on the Constitution . He knew the Constitution . But make out the Constitution and lie with what he was going to do was going to be against the Constitution , his ambition took over . He wanted to be governor . And he ran on the “ get rid of the Japs ” platform — and make headway . And as you stated , he subsequently went on to become the “ tolerant ” chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States . So , even with the Supreme Court , there is that human fallibility . We — the good people have to be operate in the appendage . And that ’s what ’s so inglorious about the Arizona Legislature , that the great unwashed like that , hoi polloi who do n’t think , people who do n’t listen and mass who do impairment to the state get elected and reign in legislatures .

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AMY GOODMAN : Just last workweek , February 19th , that ’s the day of remembrance . It ’s call the Day of Internment —

GEORGE TAKEI : No , Day of Remembrance .

AMY GOODMAN : twenty-four hour period of Remembrance . February 19th , 1942 , the Executive Order 9066 signed requiring poundage of all U.S. residents of Nipponese ancestry .

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GEORGE TAKEI : By a handsome Democrat president , Franklin D. Roosevelt .

AMY GOODMAN : What did you see at the time as a five - yr - honest-to-god ?

GEORGE TAKEI : I was a five - twelvemonth - old . My parents told — my sire recount us that we were going on a long vacation to a berth call Arkansas . It was an adventure . I thought everyone took holiday by leaving home in a railroad car with sentries , armed soldier at both ends of the elevator car , sitting on wooden benches . And whenever we approached a Ithiel Town , we were forced to draw and quarter the curtains , the shade . We were not supposed to be seen by the people out there . We remember that was the path thing happen . We check people crying , you do it , and we thought , “ Well , why are they crying ? Daddy said we ’re going on a holiday . ” So we were innocent kid .

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When we arrive at Rohwer , in the swamps of Arkansas , there were these slam wire fencing and sentry towers . But children are amazingly adaptable . And so , the barb wire fencing became no more intimidating than a strand link fence around a school playground . And the sentry towers were just part of the landscape painting . We aline to describe up three times a Clarence Day to eat lousy food for thought in a noisy mess hall . And at schooling , we began every shoal day with the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag . I could see the barb wire fencing and the sentry tower right outside my schoolhouse window as I recited the words “ with liberty and DoJ for all , ” an destitute child unaware of the sarcasm .

JUAN GONZÁLEZ : And once your folk was released from the internment , what — the operation of commit your lives back together , what had happened to your possessions , to your home ? And talk about that cognitive operation , as well .

GEORGE TAKEI : We lost everything . We were give a one - way ticket to wherever in the United States we wanted to go to , plus $ 20 . And many people were very embittered about their West Coast experience , and they chose to go to the Midwest , piazza like Chicago or Milwaukee , or further due east to New Jersey , New York , Boston . My parents decided to go back to Los Angeles . We were most familiar there . But we line up that it was very difficult . trapping was impossible . They would refuse us housing . Jobs were very , very unmanageable . My father ’s first line was as a dishwasher in a Chinatown restaurant . Only other Asians would hire us . And our first family was on skid row , with the stench of urine everywhere and those scarey , smelly , worthless citizenry trace up leaning on brick wall . They would reel around and barf right in front of us . My child baby , who was now five years honest-to-god , said , “ Mama , let ’s go back home , ” meaning behind those barb wire fences . We had adjusted to that . And come home was a horrendous , traumatic experience for us nipper .

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