Saturday Matinee: History For The Reckoning

Summary

History Daily – Saturday Matinee: History For The Reckoning

Date: March 21, 2026
Featured Podcast: History for the Reckoning
Host: Spencer Ford
Guest: George Takei

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Episode Overview

This Saturday Matinee edition of History Daily features an episode from History for the Reckoning, focusing on the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II through the lens of George Takei's poignant childhood experiences. The podcast, hosted by Spencer Ford, weaves together personal narrative, historical detail, and policy analysis to examine how the tension between national security and individual liberties led to a dark chapter in American history—and why its lessons remain deeply relevant today.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Early Life and Family Background

• George Takei’s parents' immigration stories: maternal side rooted in California farming, paternal side from Yamanashi, Japan to San Francisco.
• Themes of racism and segregation even before WWII, such as separate schools for Asian and Latino children in early 20th-century California.
• The family eventually settled in Los Angeles, where Takei was born.
  • Quote:

    “[My grandparents] sent all seven, would you believe, of their children to Japan to be educated.” – George Takei [02:50]

2. Pearl Harbor and Beginning of Incarceration

• Takei details the terror and confusion on the day his family was forcibly removed from their home:
  • Soldiers with rifles arrive, the family is given minutes to pack, and children are terrified witnesses to their parents’ distress.
  • Immediate transport to the Santa Anita racetrack, where families are forced to live in horse stalls amid filth and illness.
  • Vivid recollection of physical and emotional trauma.
  • Quote:

    “I will never be able to forget that morning. It seared into my memory.” – George Takei [05:15]
    “We were literally treated like animals.” – George Takei [11:25]

3. Life in the Camps: Structure and Survival

• Initial temporary detention at Santa Anita, then transport (three days and two nights by train) to the more permanent camp at Rohwer, Arkansas.
• Description of the camp’s militaristic layout: blocks, barracks, communal mess hall, primitive facilities.
• Takei’s father became a block manager, organizing activities, sports, and vital relief work during floods and storms.
• The loss of autonomy and dignity, especially for Takei’s mother:
  • Quote:

    “She said, the government took everything, everything from me. And she was serious about that.” – George Takei [26:00]

4. Education Amid Internment

• Makeshift schools in barracks, daily pledges of allegiance recited under the eyes of armed guards.
• Stark irony recognized by Takei as an adult:
  • Quote:

    “Every morning we began with a pledge of allegiance to the flag with liberty and justice for all…as you look out at the barbed wire and sentry towers.” – George Takei [27:15]

5. The Loyalty Questionnaire and Its Consequences

• In 1943, a so-called “loyalty questionnaire” determined willingness to serve in the U.S. military and forswear allegiance to the Emperor of Japan.
• Ambiguous wording and impossible demands led many—including Takei’s parents—to answer “no-no,” resulting in further stigmatization and forced transfer to Tule Lake, the harshest segregation camp.
• Takei critiques the logic and cruelty behind these policies.
  • Quote:

    “What do they expect us to answer? I mean, abandon their children and bear arms for the country that's holding their children hostage?” – George Takei [30:57]
    “Because of those two nos, they were categorized as disloyal.” – George Takei [33:00]

6. Life and Violence at Tule Lake

• Tule Lake described as a site of radicalization, internal conflict, and government repression.
• Factions formed among internees ("no-no boys" and radicals), leading to riots, violence, and retaliatory actions by authorities.
• Camp’s environmental and psychological harshness, constant surveillance, and even imprisonment of camp dissidents within concrete jail cells.
  • Quote:

    “Many turned radical. There were riots, people shot. … They built a concrete prison using people in camp.” – George Takei [36:01]

7. Renunciation of Citizenship and Legal Battles

• Congressional action permitted internees to renounce U.S. citizenship, a move exploited by both government and camp radicals.
• Takei’s mother considered renouncing citizenship to keep her family together and protected, fearing violence if released.
• Civil Liberties attorney Wayne Collins fought successfully to reverse forced renunciations, including for Takei’s mother.
  • Quote:

    “Wayne Collins was a courageous and principled attorney and he came to the rescue.” – George Takei [45:01]

8. Release, Postwar Struggles, and Resettlement

• After the war, the Takei family faced intense hostility, housing insecurity, and economic hardship on return to Los Angeles.
• Takei’s father found work as a dishwasher for a Chinese-owned restaurant—the only jobs available to former internees.
• The family’s story reflects the lasting consequences of internment on the Japanese American community.

9. The Redress Movement and Civil Liberties Act

• 1970s/80s: The push for governmental acknowledgment of injustice and reparations within Japanese American communities.
• Many survivors were reluctant to testify; cultural humility and traumatic experience made public storytelling difficult.
• The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 included both a formal apology and monetary compensation.
  • Quote:

    “My only regret is that Daddy wasn't here to receive this and to know that that apology was signed. And my mother said, daddy always knew this day would come.” – George Takei [56:34]
    “My whole $20,000 went into the founding of the museum, plus some that I took out of my pocket.” – George Takei [58:28]

10. Lessons for Today

• Takei underscores the persistent relevance of internment and its lessons for American democracy—especially the dangers of racial hysteria and abandonment of due process.
  • Quote:

    “There's a profoundly important lesson of democracy to be learned...we’ve got to learn the lesson.” – George Takei [59:17]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “[My grandparents] sent all seven ... of their children to Japan to be educated.” – George Takei [02:50]
• “I will never be able to forget that morning. It seared into my memory.” – George Takei [05:15]
• “We were literally treated like animals.” – George Takei [11:25]
• “Every morning we began with a pledge of allegiance to the flag ... as you look out at the barbed wire and sentry towers.” – George Takei [27:15]
• “What do they expect us to answer? ... abandon their children and bear arms for the country that's holding their children hostage?” – George Takei [30:57]
• “Many turned radical. There were riots, people shot. … They built a concrete prison using people in camp.” – George Takei [36:01]
• “Wayne Collins was a courageous and principled attorney and he came to the rescue.” – George Takei [45:01]
• “My only regret is that Daddy wasn't here to receive this ... My mother said, daddy always knew this day would come.” – George Takei [56:34]
• “There's a profoundly important lesson of democracy to be learned...we’ve got to learn the lesson.” – George Takei [59:17]

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Important Timestamps

• [02:50] – Family background and early anti-Asian racism in California
• [05:15] – Forced removal from home, experience at Santa Anita racetrack
• [19:48] – Description of camp life and barrack structure at Rohwer, Arkansas
• [26:00] – Loss of domestic autonomy and impact on Takei’s mother
• [27:15] – Barracks schools and the irony of pledging allegiance behind barbed wire
• [30:57] – The loyalty questionnaire and its devastating impact
• [36:01] – Violence, division, and repression at Tule Lake
• [45:01] – Intervention of Wayne Collins and reversal of citizenship renunciations
• [52:10] – Returning to Los Angeles, confronting postwar racism and poverty
• [56:34] – Receiving the redress letter and apology; reflection on justice
• [59:17] – Takei’s message on the lessons of internment for democracy

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Closing Thoughts

George Takei’s vivid, personal account provides a powerful and humanizing view of the Japanese American internment experience, addressing not just the historical events but the emotional and intergenerational consequences. The episode is a vital reminder—delivered with candor, humility, and urgency—of why confronting and understanding past injustice is essential to preserving civil rights and democracy in America.

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For more information, listeners are encouraged to read George Takei's graphic novel They Called Us Enemy and visit the Japanese American National Museum. Find more from History for the Reckoning via show notes and online platforms.

Transcript

[Podcast Host]

In my new live show and check out historydailylive.com for upcoming dates. I discuss an early period of American history, after the Revolution but before the writing of the Constitution. And this was a fraught time. The nation was just a newborn and there were real crises, both foreign and domestic, that threatened the country. Had the wind blown a different way, maybe the United States would have been affected. Failed experiment because at the time the American government we had failed in two it did not provide the robust centralized power and authority it needed to respond adequately to threats and it did not provide the robust, enshrined individual liberties it needed to prevent that centralized power from sliding into tyranny. That has always been a tension in America. We want to secure our citizens life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but but need a powerful governmental structure to do it. A government authorized to deprive life, liberty and happiness. The line between protecting the public and subjecting the public can be blurry and we've made mistakes. One of the most unfortunate was the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II. And on today's Saturday matinee, we're bringing you an episode from the new podcast History for the Reckoning with actor and activist George Takei telling his own family story of this dreadful period. I hope you enjoy. While you're listening, be sure to search for and follow History for the Reckoning. We put a link in the show notes to make it easy for you.

[Spencer Ford]

This is History for the Reckoning, a podcast that dives deep into the history that's hard to hear but critical to understand. American concentration camps, the story of World War II Japanese incarceration. Welcome to the Prologue. I'm your host Spencer Ford. Over this season of History for the Reckoning, we're going to do a deep dive with lots of facts and historical details about the incarceration of America's west coast Japanese during World War II. But it's more than just dates and facts. These things happen to real people with feelings and lives and families and stories. And no one is better equipped to share one family story than someone who was there telling his and his family story. I'm honored to be joined today by George Takei. George has spent decades in the public eye as a performer on stage, screen and film in such culture defining works as the original Star Trek. He's also worked tirelessly as an activist, speaker, and even an author. I invite our listeners to pick up his graphic novel, they Called US Enemy, that digs even deeper into his family's story. George, thank you so much for joining me. Today, as my first question, how did your parents end up in LA?

[George Takei]

My maternal grandparents in the 1890s came to the Sacramento area and he ran these big farms and my mother was born there. However, rural California in those days was not too different from the American south, the racism there. And so all Asian and Latino children had to go to a separate school. The white children went to another school. My grandparents didn't like that. So they sent all seven, would you believe, of their children to Japan to be educated. And my mother was sent to Japan to be a proper Japanese lady. So she was bilingual, more comfortable in Japanese. She went to Los Angeles after coming back to build a career. My father was born in Japan in a prefecture called Yamanashi at the foot of Mount Fuji. And when he was five years old, he lost his mother. She passed my grandfather, he decided to immigrate to America with his two boys. My father was raised and educated in San Francisco, but he also decided to come to Los Angeles and opened a high end dry cleaning shop. And he knew Mr. Komai, the publisher of the Rafu Shimpo, and he introduced them. And that's how my parents got married. And that's where I made my debut in Los Angeles.

[Spencer Ford]

You're a performer at all times.

[George Takei]

That's true. The next born was my brother Henry. And the last born, my father desperately wanted, wanted a girl. And he got his wish. And with, with the third baby, she is Nancy Reiko.

[Spencer Ford]

Tell me about December 7th, 1941, Pearl Harbor Day. What was your family's experience that day?

[George Takei]

I was 4 years old and I have absolutely no memory, but I do have. I turned five in April of 1942. Okay. And overwhelming, unforgettable memory I have happened. The month after my fifth birthday, my father came into the bedroom that I shared with my brother Henry. And he dressed assuredly and told us to play in the living room while he and our mother did some last minute packing. My baby sister was in their bedroom in a crib. And so Henry and I went to the living room where there's nothing to do. So we were standing by the front window, just gazing out at the neighborhood, and suddenly we saw two soldiers marching up our driveway. They carried rifles with shiny bayonets on them. They stopped at the front porch and with their fists began pounding on the door. Henry and I were terrified, paralyzed. My father came rushing out and answered the door. And the soldiers said, get your family out of this house. And Henry and I are standing right beside him. And my father said, we'll be ready In a few minutes, we're still doing some last minute packing. And the other soldier, who wasn't talking, brought his rifle up to my father. We returned to ice, Henry and I. And my father said, five minutes. And the other soldiers, the one that was talking, said, five minutes, okay? And so he went back. But the guy that raised his rifle came into our house, followed my father down the hallway and stood over my parents. And Henry and I just stood there staring at that soldier, the one that I was talking, just. Just terrorized. And shortly thereafter, my father came carrying two large suitcases and little boxes under his arm. And he put the suitcase down and gave both me and Henry about the same size box. He said, those are underwear and socks. You carry them and you follow me. And picked up the suitcase. And the soldier ordered him to go out onto the driveway and wait. And the other soldier, who followed him to the bedroom came out. And my father and Henry and I were just standing there. And then my mother came out and she was scaring our baby sister and this huge, heavy duffel bag, and tears was streaming down her cheeks. I will never be able to forget that morning. It seared into my memory. But that's how the Second World War began for us. There was a huge truck with other Japanese American families backed on with their luggage. And we were driven downtown to Little Tokyo, to the Buddhist temple. There was a row of buses there at the curb, and on the sidewalk was packed with other Japanese American families with their luggage looking very forlorn. And so we were unloaded and we were loaded onto the buses. And that caravan of buses took us to Anaheim, where the Santa Anita racetrack is. We were unloaded from the buses and herded by. And there were other soldiers there now. It was a whole different scene. And these soldiers herded us over to the stable area, and each family was assigned a horse stall to sleep in. A horse stall. There were insects darting around on the. On the ground, flies buzzing in the air. And the stench of horse manure was overwhelming. I. I was five years old then, just a month from my birthday. But I still remember the pungence of that horse manure stench. And I also remember my mother mumbling. So degrading, so degrading, so degrading. And my father was stoic. He didn't say a word. My baby sister immediately got sick, and a few days later, I got sick, too. And I remember going with my mother and my brother to the medicine dispensary. And there were long lines, and we stood in that line and I was telling My mother. I'm feeling well. My father was with our baby sister, and we got the medicine and we went back there, and she was like. Like a statue next to us. She. She was getting things for us, water, food, but she would not leave us. And we got well. But in that filthy environment. We were taken there in May. And I just remember all day long, things were happening. We had to go there, get the medicine. We had to line up to be checked for whatever. And it was usually my mother. My father spoke both English and Japanese fluently. And because we had a lot of immigrant people, some complex things had to be explained to them in Japanese. And so my father immediately was taken away to be a translator or explainer. So my mother was the one that was with us all the time, okay? And so Daddy was the one who took us to get clean there at the San Diego racetrack. It was outdoors, so the horses were washed. Oh, we were treated like animals. And so it was men's Day, and. And the two of us, the boys went with our father, and they closed us down and Daddy scrubbed us down and we dried off. And another day was Ladies Day. And the ladies and the girl babies went and washed down. We were literally treated like animals. And latrine was. They had these long troughs for men. I don't know what the ladies was like, but it was in September that we were packed into these trains at Union Station. Henry and I were excited. Oh, sure. We were given two treats. A long vacation and our first train ride. What could be better? It was a great thing. But we always wondered why all the adults were all so sober and some even were crying. As you know, we rocked on the train and it was boring. Desert scene after desert scene. In Arizona, we started seeing the. A saguaro cactus race by our windows, blistering out. Train car, no air conditioning. And we thought it was part of going on a vacation. Soldiers at the front end and back end of each car with rifles. Those. I felt for those soldiers having to stay stiff like that on that long trip. And so occasionally, you know, would thump their rifles on the ground and sort of stretch. But they were always there. And they were the ones. Ones that ordered us out. When we stopped in the middle of the desert, alarm went through the. What's going to happen in the middle of nothing? They want us to get out. Are they going to abandon us? Yeah. And they said, out. Everybody up. Get out. Get out. Everybody up. And one of the nise said, you must have heard from the guards. This is to stretch our legs. A little bit of exercise. And Henry and I thought it was exciting. And the minute we went down those steep stairs, grab a handful of sand and threw it at Henry, and he chased me, that we're running around in the desert. And one of the people on the train that we ran by grabbed me by the arm. And then he stopped Henry with a finger like this and brought us back to our father. And my mother didn't get out because those stairs were steep. And she thought, you know, we. They might shoot us out there. So she chose to stay in. I mean, they. They've got these rifles. Yeah, it's. They're. They're there for a purpose. I remember my mother always talking about three days and two nights. Three days and two nights. That's how long that was. And on the third day and in the morning, we start seeing shrubbery and some trees. And then we saw that these trees were growing out of what I call black water swamps. Oh, sure. Huge towering trees. It began to slow down. The guards started rolling up and down the aisle. And I thought they were trying to scare us, acting like lions. They were saying Southern accents. And Nisei said, they're saying, camp roar. We're getting near the camp. And then it was just rolling very slowly. And we saw barbed wire fence going down the left side. And then soon we saw other Japanese Americans crowded and silently just, you know, staring up. My mother recognized one of her friends, and she waved at her. Wanley and Mrs. Imai was her name. She waved back. We had reached the camp, and finally the train came to a stop. And we all had to get out and line up right beside the train. And we all had tags. Our name, birthplace, tied to our clothes

[Spencer Ford]

like the government gave everyone a tag.

[George Takei]

Yeah, yeah, okay. Back in Los Angeles, a man would walk down, giving us our new address, the block, the barrack, and the unit number. And scalded on that scarlet and on the car. And. And we just lined up until they said, okay, take a family. Go with. With this group. And we were loaded onto trucks and driven to the. The block that we were assigned to and our luggage dumped right by the mess hall. And my father said, I'll. I'll go look for our. Our unit came back and said. And he brought to us here Nisei guys to help with luggage. And ours was. Because I wrote the book. I remember the address. I looked at the address. Block 2, Barrack, F, Unit A. So the two guys helped with our luggage. But that heavy duffel bag my mother let no one carry. My father wouldn't carry it. And these two guys said, Mrs. Katie, that looks to me. Let me carry. Nope. She said, yeah, it's monument. And she carried that all the way to our barrack. And we were the end unit. And it was. There was a mess. The missile was right across the way. So that was to be our new home. Yeah.

[Spencer Ford]

So you said there were blocks that are divided into barracks that are divided into units. So just help the. The audience here to know what are we talking about? Describe what a barracks is like.

[George Takei]

Barrack was a wood frame, long wood frame divided into units and covered with black tar paper. Okay, that's it. No, no solid wood wall. Just the wood frame and wrapped in black tar paper. And there was a plywood over the roof. And that too was covered by that black tar paper. So long units and divided into units, small units. And we had the one on the right hand in there. And it was a blistering hot day. Arkansas summers are very hot and their thunderstorms are terrifying. I remember those thunderstorms. They were frightening. When the thunder came, it sounded like somebody was tearing the sky apart. And then that literally shook. Shook the barrack because it was so loud. And my father was. I don't know whether they were elected, but he was assign the job of block manager because of its linguistic ability.

[Spencer Ford]

How many people would you say were in a block?

[George Takei]

I would over 100.

[Spencer Ford]

Okay.

[George Takei]

A row of six barracks. Six units in each barrack and six barracks. And then in the middle was the mess hall and laundry room. And then the women's latrine and the men's latrine, and then six more barracks on this side that made a block. And these were in regular military fashion, you know, all across the landscape.

[Spencer Ford]

So it really looks like a military camp.

[George Takei]

Yeah, it was the same pattern. Okay. As military camp.

[Spencer Ford]

Roughly how many people were in rower when you were there?

[George Takei]

8,000.

[Spencer Ford]

Okay. Like a town.

[George Takei]

Yeah. Mess hall was the central social room. We ate there. We had to live life. And my father was a member of a baseball team in San Francisco. So he organized a baseball diamond for young men. It was very sexist, only men. But he, as a block manager, he had to, you know, do these things. And we all were there cheering for. Daddy was a pitcher.

[Spencer Ford]

Right.

[George Takei]

But he made sure that he rotated with other people to give them a chance to. He was a politician in he votes. Some nights there were dances organized and, well, we were put to bed by our mother. But our. Our barrack was right beside the mess hall. And so that's where the Dances were held, and we were exposed to the music of Tommy Dorsey and all the popular bands of that time because we were in bed and we heard the music wafting over from the mess hall. And for the old folks in the mess hall, they had nights where people sang classical, old Japanese songs, which to us sounded like somebody was being strangled. We had that kind of entertainment to drift off to sleep in. He organized teams to chop wood and deliver the woods to a common pile for each barrack. And each family came and collected their log when we burnt them, but was 20 hours a day. And in fact, for my father, it was 24 hours a day when those horrific thunderstorm hit. And when we needed our father the most was when we. When he was gone because he was trying to stop a flood someplace or, you know, the camp in southeastern Arkansas was reclaimed swampland. And when it rained, it turned right into a swamp. And some people got stuck in the mud and needed to be pulled out. And so young men had to carry them on the back and. And their feet went even deeper because it was too weight, you know. So my father had to deal with organizing that team to build a boardwalk, a skinny boardwalk. He got lumber, useless lumber, collected them, and the young men laid them and founded the pieces of lumber that they had sawed in uniform pattern. And my mother found rags that she washed and tore into strips and braided them into rugs so that we had something soft to step on. And we didn't want to bring the dirt and the muck from outside, so we took our shoes off, not just like in Japan. There were shoes at the front door. Right. Because it was rough timber being used for floor. And the one thing she resented the most was the work that she enjoyed doing cooking for us. She said, they even took that away from me.

[Spencer Ford]

Oh, because you're only eating in the mess hall.

[George Takei]

Right. And she said they took everything from us, even my cooking for my family, we had to eat. And she was critical of the. These are all volunteer cooks, members of the. Of our block, you know, that became men who became the cook. And she said, oh, that Mr. Yamada, he doesn't know how to mix teriyaki sauce. She said, the government took everything, everything from me. And she was serious about that.

[Spencer Ford]

So tell me, what did the children do, particularly the school year? How did they handle school?

[George Takei]

We went to school. Okay. That school was another barrack. Okay. And it was a different block that we had to walk to. And the classrooms were bigger units than our habitations. And there's a blackboard and the American flag at the front. And every morning we began with a pledge of allegiance to the flag with liberty and justice for all.

[Spencer Ford]

As you look out at the barbed

[George Takei]

wire and barbed wires, sentry towers, armed soldiers looking down at us. But the irony of that, in a barbed wire prison camp, I can see it right outside the schoolhouse window. It was the most anti normal American schoolhouse, right? Or way of living. Although the irony is I've gone back for pilgrimages to Rohr, Arkansas. And we, we had one of the people that lived near our camp in a ramshackle house, and she said these people envied us because we had three meals a day. We ate three times. They were so poor that they didn't eat three meals a day. I don't know what they ate, but we were told that.

[Spencer Ford]

So let's skip ahead a bit to when was commonly known today as the loyalty questionnaire was handed out. What was your family's experience with that, with the loyalty questionnaire?

[George Takei]

A year into imprisonment. I mean, this is after they called us enemy alien and went through all the anguish, the thievery of what we owned in destruction of my father's business. And then a year of imprisonment. And then he realized there's an overtime, manpower shortage. Here are all these healthy young men. So they decide we need those people. The stupidity of the whole thing, if there were one as far as soldiers, they should have decided at the beginning before this happened. But the racism and the hysteria of the time blinded them. And the other irony is right after Pearl harbor, young Japanese Americans, like any young American, immediately rushed to the recruitment centers to volunteer to serve in the military. And the recruitment centers rejected them as enemy alien stupidity at the very beginning to reject us. And then a year later, after they've taken everything, imprisoned us and caused all that anguish and they realized they could use us, but we were categorized as enemy alien. How to justify recruiting enemy aliens out of a barbed wire prison camp? So they come up with another outrageously ignorant solution, the loyalty questionnaire. It was a series of about 40 questions put together by people who were literally illiterate, didn't know the English language, grammar. There were two key questions that required they needed to have yes answers. Question 27 and question 28. Question 27 asked, will you serve in the United States military when ordered? My parents had three young children. I was six and Henry was younger and my baby sister was a toddler. He asked, well, what, what's going to happen with the children? We have three young children.

[Spencer Ford]

Yeah. Does checking yes mean you're going to take me tomorrow. We have no idea.

[George Takei]

Well, their answer is we have no plans for the children. That's it. What do they expect us to answer? I mean, abandon their children and bear arms to fight for the country that's holding their children hostage? They said there's no other true answer. We answered no. This is what I asked my parents when I was a teenager, and they answered no. Question 28 was one sentence, but with two ideas. It asked, will you swear your loyalty to the United States of America and forswear your loyalty to the Emperor of Japan? They just assumed because of the space that we have an inborn loyalty to the Emperor. And structured in that sentence, I mean, do these people understand English? There's no way they could answer that truthfully. And so they said we answered truthfully. The only answer that we could honestly give, they answered no. And because of that, they were categorized as disloyal. What is the thinking of these people? I mean, are they educated? The most logical answers to both questions, right, particularly with we have no plans for the children would be no. Any American, any normal parent would answer that way. And because of those two nos, they were categorized as disloyal. And no. We couldn't have disloyals mixed with the ones that answered yes. Yes, loyal. Because of those two no nos, my parents had to be segregated from the rest of us other Japanese Americans. There were 10 Barbara prison camps. They chose one, Tule Lake in Northern California as the segregation center for disloyals. A dry lake bed, no vegetation, tumbleweeds rolling around on this bare landscape. Castle Rock to the north. It was a very desolate place and the harshest of all the intermediate camps. It had not one barbed wire fence as all the others did, that had three barbed wire fences to illustrate their overreaction to the whole thing. Just compounding their stupidity. They had the in the sentry tower. The other camps had an armed soldier looking down in Tugilake. They had machine guns pointed down at us, plus a half a dozen tanks patrolling. Literally overreaction.

[Spencer Ford]

What do you think is going to happen, guys?

[George Takei]

They belong on a battlefield, but this is guarding innocent people who were enraged already. Many people answered no, no because they were angry. After they treat us like this, you know, they're demanding this outrageous questionnaire. But so it was really a stupid, outrageous and cruel. The harshest and the cruelest of all the 10 camps. The other camps, other yes yeses stayed in the camps that they were assigned. However, they had to suffer because they understood question 28 if I answer yes, that means I had been loyal to the Emperor. I was born and raised and educated here as an American. How dare they accuse me of having me. But given the givens, I'm in the street, let's cover ourselves by biting the bullet, swallowing that ugly taste and saying, yes, I will swear that I had been loyal to the Emperor of Japan and answers. And so because they were yes yeses, they were eligible to be drafted. And these are the young men who bit that bullet so hard and they were drafted and they said, you know, okay, we were forced to answer this. We're going to fight the best we can to get my family out from behind these barbed wire fence.

[Spencer Ford]

Let's go into Tule Lake. Apart from there being three fences, tanks, machine guns, how was the experience different from Rohr?

[George Takei]

Tule Lake was the most turbulent, fiercely violent camp of them all. Well, you know, these are people that were angry, outraged. And so it was a crushing together of the whole spectrum of rage, anger and sense of abuse. And many turned radical. There were riots, there were people shot. I remember waking up to these young men who said, they're going to rise up when the Japanese army lands on the west coast of North America and join them and fight against America. So they jogged regularly. They wore achimaki, you know, those headbands. And painted on them was the military Japanese symbol, the rising sun with the raised painted in red. And they jogged around the camp every morning, changing the route so that they cover other places. And that was also a recruitment strategy to get others who were angry to join them. And I remember waking up to the distant sound of their cadence counting. And that would get louder and louder as they got closer to our block and loudest when they jogged around their block. And then they started to fade as they went away from us. And when they finished their job, they got together and in unison shouted. They were Japanese soldiers. Japanese Americans turned into Japanese soldiers. And they were fierce and single minded and you couldn't argue with them. They this country, the United States, was a corrupt country and I don't have anything to do with it. And I'm going to fight them when I can break out of these camps. They meant business and that meant a clash with others who just went with the flow or Grandpa, you know, is old, we don't want to abandon him, we'll go with him. And so there's a whole, the whole range of reasons for answering no and no. And they clashed and there were riots amongst Japanese Americans and shouts which fired. People got killed and I, my father took me to one of the discussions that at the camp headquarters that he regularly had and discuss, you know, the, the situation there. And the radicals really got outrageous. And my father said, let's go. And then there were people outside and there was a riot. And my father took my hand and I remember running back to our block and the government retaliated. The jeeps came in and broke it up, but they didn't arrest anyone there. They waited until night and sometimes three or four nights later and they would select individuals that they had spotted as the leader and he would come in the dark of the night and just pull that man out. And I remember waking up, somebody in our barrack got pulled out and I remember the woman saying, he's not one of them, please, please. And children singing, daddy, Daddy, don't go. Please don't take him. And being taken away. And so was it a place where there was a lot of emotions spilling out and there, there was no right and wrong. The radicals too made a good argument and, and you know, we sympathize with them, but not to the point of going out there and risking your lives. And so the camp was the most turbulent of them all. They built a concrete prison using people in camp in Duly Lake who had construction experience before the war. And they made them build this prison, concrete prison with bars and went there on a pilgrimage in his. And the graffiti is written there and it was incredibly filthy, unhealthy kind of sitting. And they were brutalized. Oh, there were brown splashes on the concrete. They were people's heads being bashed against the concrete that turned brown over the years. And so there was all that retaliation by the government. And so it was really a time bomb. Something was going to happen.

[Spencer Ford]

When the bill was passed by Congress that allowed people to renounce their citizenship. What was the effect on the camp in particular, particularly on your family?

[George Takei]

Congress was sick and tired of all the news that they were getting from Tule Lake. And they said, all right, if they want that, desperately want to go, go to Japan. We'll send them to Japan. You will give them a chance to renounce their citizenship. And so this was playing right into the radicals hands. They used it. See, look, look, they do all this to us and they want us to, to renounce our citizenship and they'll have that much more against us. And so they, they use that as a reason to proselytize more people. My mother did not want to renounce, but her family was paramount. It was the most precious thing. It was not no longer a matter of citizenship. She was going to protect her citizenship. And again the government played into the radicals hands. Radicals said, they are trying to get us all to renounce or this is the way we show them. And they had another campaign slogan. And not on slogan, but rationale. They're treating you like this. We're treated like garbage. Oh. And then the Congress announced that they're going to close down to the lake. It's too much. We don't want to have anything to do with it. We're going to open up the gates and just close it up. Again, the radicals said, we're not going to play this game. We're going to renounce. We don't want to have anything to do with this. And when the government announced that they're going to close down to the lake, that terrified so many people, including my mother, were going to be put out there. And those rednecks, we're still in a war. Japanese are still killing white Americans. This is really dangerous. But my mother said, I want my family protected. And so I'm going to insist that the government keep Tulagan operating. And enough of those people were gathered and so the government decided not to close down. Can you imagine? Not to close. The Barbara fence that imprisoned us were also the barbed wire fence that protected us from these red rednecks out there. And so they decided to keep to operating.

[Spencer Ford]

So the logic for her was I give up my citizenship, so now I am an alien and they'll keep me in a prison camp as an alien.

[George Takei]

Yeah. Okay.

[Spencer Ford]

So then they eventually they do shut down the camp. So how did that transition happen for your family?

[George Takei]

Well, my mother was on a list of people be on the first ship going to Japan.

[Spencer Ford]

Wow.

[George Takei]

My mother's name was there. And my hero is this man named Wayne Collins, ACLU attorney in San Francisco. No one, not even Japanese Americans lawyers would touch Japanese American cases because it was so hopeless. Wayne Collins was a courageous and principled attorney and he came to the rescue. He said, these people were forced into this decision with a gun pointed at their heads. This is unjust and they cannot be sent to a war torn country where the people there are scrambling in the rubble for food. We must not do another injustice to these people. And Wayne Collins fought the case for her and whether it wasn't on that ship, but he literally went running up the gang planet to pull some of the people whose names were on that list to say, you're off the list, you don't have to go to Japan. Oh.

[Spencer Ford]

So these are people that said, I made a mistake, I should not have renounced my citizenship when they got the lawyer.

[George Takei]

Yeah, okay. My mother unfortunately got the word that she doesn't have to be on that ship before she was there. It's an incredible story and it is revealing about how fragile American democracy can be.

[Spencer Ford]

So after your family left the camp, where did you first go? Because the business is gone, you don't have any roots down anymore, nothing.

[George Takei]

And beyond that, it was dangerous. I mean, hatred was still out there. The rednecks were still there taking those potshots. And Los Angeles too had people who had pot shots taken at them and assaults. And that rumor came back to us. It was too dangerous to go as a family. So my father said, I'll go first, I'll look over the situation, get a job and find a place to stay. And so week after week he wrote my mother saying how hostile the situation is and difficult it is to find a job and a place to stay. And he said, there are a few good people, so keep on trying. He was gone for 10 weeks until finally when the letter came, my mother said, daddy has a job and he's found a place to stay. We're going to go back to Los Angeles. We were the last ones to leave our block. They started closing down the missile one by one. And our missile had closed down. And so we were going to the next block's missile to eat with the remaining people there. We had a pet dog, a stray dog that we adopted and we couldn't take our pets with us. And so for me as a nine year old boy, it was a heartbreaking thing to have to leave Blackie there. I hugged him and I cried and Black was there wiggling his body and happily not understanding his situation. In the car came, picked us up and our luggage and we had to leave Blackie behind. I heard his desperate barking feet away as we drove away.

[Spencer Ford]

So you joined your father in la. What was it like when you got there?

[George Takei]

He was there at Union Station waiting for us. And we spotted him standing on the platform immediately. And so we yelled and shouted and waved and he saw us and then waved back to us. And Henry and I were off the train the minute that it stopped. And we went running down and daddy was anchored down with his arm outspread. But Henry and I threw ourselves into his arm and knocked him over. I still remember that. And he was laughing when we were laughing. And my mother was carrying our baby sister and she lifted daddy up and we had one great big family hug. And he said, we're gonna go right through the heart of downtown Los Angeles to our new home. We got on the train and it went. He said, we're gonna go through the old Little Tokyo, went past the railway station and then turned onto First Street. And what he called the old Little Tokyo was there. But there are all black people there. Oh, sure. Because when we all vacated, it was all that vacancy. And the surge of African Americans in the south who came to work on the war plans, needed housing. And so there were these neon signs with Japanese characters that read Far East Cafe. But it was all black people there. And fascinating. I looked up and my father said, this is Little Tokyo. How come there was all black people? And he said, during the war, this area became. Came to be called Brownsville. And then it made a left turn onto a street called Broadway. Broadway. And that's where all the great movie palaces were and all the big department stores were. And I. They had colored lights. I mean, I'd never seen lights with color in them in a prison camp. And this blazing, these row of marquees with red lights, like what? Zigzag and blue lights that bubbled up and I mean, it was blinding. It was the most incredible alien planet that we had landed on. And we kept walking and walking. And then he said, this is the street where we had our hotel room. It was skid row.

[Spencer Ford]

Literally.

[George Takei]

Skid row, literally. Bodies lying on the sidewalk, leaning on the walls, others staggering, bending over the curb and bartering. We were shocked. And my mother tightened her grip on us and we picked up our pace and daddy picked up at the space. And then we walked up these wooden steps. I had never been in a two story, more. More than two store building steps that go way, way up there. I was scared. We're supposed to go. That was our first home. Thank God it was a second floor. And there was a smell in the hallway. One room, two beds.

[Spencer Ford]

What job had your father found?

[George Takei]

He found a dishwasher's job. Okay. In a Chinatown restaurant. Only other Asians would hire Chinese Americans coming back. That was our return to Los Angeles.

[Spencer Ford]

I wonder if we can skip a couple decades forward. We're in the mid-70s now, so you're well into your career. You are doing very well as an actor at this point.

[George Takei]

Point.

[Spencer Ford]

But that's when the political movement of redress really started gaining some momentum. I wonder what was your sense of the feeling within the Japanese American community around redress? I imagine there were complicated feelings, but what was your impression?

[George Takei]

Well, because this Jacl Guy was a good friend of mine. I was exposed to the, the campaign to get people to testify. Many were the Japanese community, particularly Japanese Americans. The Japanese culture is a self effacing character, like in gift giving. This is something very humble, but please accept, you know, but also uncomfortable talking about their own pain or situation. We went on a campaign to persuade people to testify, but many demurred because of. Or they don't, they don't like to be in the public eye. Okay, maybe because of the internment. And the press would question you and you'd have to respond. The younger ones like me were eager to participate in that up. And many who had not experienced the internment and were yet more American than the Japanese wanted to testify. But they were also like this woman who was hated by everybody, Caucasian woman who was one of those that advocated for our internment and was a very vocal supporter of the internment even though that was passed and saying that was a good thing that America did. She was there every day listening to the testimony. And that woman who testified yesterday, but she knows, knows nothing about it. They interment this white woman telling a Japanese American internee that. But she had, she was so cheeky. And I, if I had the chance, I would have strangled her in public.

[Spencer Ford]

Civil Liberties act of 88 passes. The President signs it. What was your feeling? Maybe it was even years later when you finally got. So I guess I should tell the audience. The bill stipulated that anyone who applied for it would be given $20,000 as reparations. But also there was a congressional and presidential apology that came in the form of a letter. So do you remember when you received yours?

[George Takei]

I do indeed. They dated in the order of their age. So I was one of the last. Of course, I think I got mine in 1991.

[Spencer Ford]

Okay.

[George Takei]

This bill was signed in 88, so I was the tail end of that. It also said he had to be alive at the signing of the bill in 88.

[Spencer Ford]

Oh, okay.

[George Takei]

And the people that suffered the most, people who were enraged the most, people who were pain the most, had passed by that time. My father in our family was the one who not only had his own pain and suffering, but those of others he took on during the camp. And he had passed. And I said to my mother, my mother was still alive. I said, my only regret is that Daddy wasn't here to receive this and to know that that apology was signed. And my mother said, daddy always knew this day would come. And I know that she was saying it to kind of comfort me, but I think she was right. My Father had faith until he died.

[Spencer Ford]

It sounds like he really believed in America, that it would eventually do the right thing. And that's incredible.

[George Takei]

I'm sure he would have testified.

[Spencer Ford]

So, moving from oh, I guess I just say. So you received this letter, what did the apology, in addition to the money, mean to you personally?

[George Takei]

Well, the money I didn't feel I deserved because I was a child. I didn't go through. I mean, I went through the whole process, but I. I was too young to really experience that. I remember that riot where my father took my hand and we ran like bats on hell. But, you know, the ones that were really involved in that riot, pro and con, are the ones that really deserved the apology. And I didn't deserve it. So at that time, we were fundraising for the founding of the Japanese American national museum. My whole $20,000 went into the founding of the museum, plus some that I took out of my pocket. We're very proud of that building and what it stands for.

[Spencer Ford]

So moving into today, you've told us your. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences, your family's experiences, this very crucial part of American history that you lived through. What is your hope, through your activism that you've done throughout your life, but particularly in the political moment that we experience today and decades into the future. What do you want people to take away from learning stories like yours?

[George Takei]

Because they haven't learned the lesson of the internment. And there's a profoundly important lesson of democracy to be learned. I mean, due process alone, the importance of that. You need evidence, facts before you imprison anybody. And that's what we've been doing. We've had some presidents that were not very good. And there are. There's an important human lesson to be learned. Not just Americans, but a human lesson to be learned. And we didn't learn the lesson from World War II, and now we are repeating it multiplied threefold. It is outrageous. And I'd like to think we. There are more intelligent Americans, more Americans with a sense of humanity and principle and understanding of our democracy and how precious it is. We've got to learn the lesson. And I don't have many years left, but I'm going to use that as those years to get that lesson known to my fellow Americans.

[Spencer Ford]

Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. Thank you for joining me for this interview, George. Season one of History for the Reckoning is made possible by support from the JACL Mount Olympus chapter, as well as generous financial support from the Takahashi Family foundation and the JA Community Foundation. The music was produced by Patrick Coffin. If you want to support the show, follow us on Instagram at History for the Reckoning Sign up for our newsletter at History for the Reckoning on Substack, where you'll also find the show notes for each episode. Or support us financially through [e-mail] historyforthereckoning.