FactualThe man who played Lieutenant Sulu in the “Star Trek” series experienced the detention of nearly 120,000 Japanese and Japanese-Americans during the Second World War in the United States. A dark episode in the history of his country that the actor wants to make better known.
At 84, George Takei is still on a mission. The American actor has however put away his costume for a long time as Hikaru Sulu, the helmsman he played in the original version of the television series. StarTrek. If he no longer pilots a spaceship in search of unknown worlds, he multiplies to prevent one of the less glorious episodes in the history of his country from falling into oblivion.
In this case: the incarceration, during the Second World War, of nearly 120,000 people, including two thirds of Japanese-Americans, on national territory. Two months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed, on February 19, 1942, decree 9066 which would lead these men, women and children, suspected solely because of their origin, to be deprived of their freedom.
“The lack of evidence was the evidence, we had to lock ourselves up so we didn’t do anything, just because we looked like that. George Takei, pointing to his face
“After Pearl Harbor, the country went mad with fear, says the octogenarian from his home in Los Angeles. People were spitting on us, throwing horrible names at us like “yellows”, “traitors”, “saboteurs” or even that painful word “Jap”. » Executive Order 9066 results in the arrest, primarily on the West Coast, of those citizens sent to one of the ten “relocation camps” created on this occasion.
“There was no charge against us, no trial, no possibility of appeal,” recalls George Takei, whose mother was Japanese American and father Japanese. “The lack of proof was the proof, we had to be locked up so that we did nothing, just because we looked like that”, he continues, pointing to her face.
George Takei is one of the last survivors of these events. To celebrate the 80th anniversary of Decree 9066, he will address, on February 23 in Colorado Springs, the students of the US Air Force Academy. In 2021, the institution distributed them his latest book, We were the enemies (Futuropolis, 2020). Released in the United States in 2019, this black and white graphic work, illustrated by Harmony Becker and co-written with Steven Scott and Justin Eisinger, retraces the life of the actor. The work was honored with the Will Eisner Prize for Best Documentary Comic.
At the end of the trip, another reality
“We seek to develop leaders who understand the importance of living with honor and lifting up those around us, explains Brigadier General Linell A. Letendre, one of the school’s officials. So many values that I found in George Takei’s book. » In front of these future officers, the person concerned did not fail to return to this day in May 1942, when his world changed.
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