But George also notes that many Japanese Americans of his parents’ generation also refuse to speak openly to their children about internment. At the time, this makes George angry-it makes it seem as though something important and horrible that he and his family experienced never actually happened. As a teen, he goes looking for information about internment during World War II in his history and civics textbooks, but he finds no mention of the camps. George Takei shows that when people purposefully remain silent about the past, it can be profoundly damaging for future generations.
The memoir proposes that it’s essential to learn about this history because it’s only by remembering the past that people can prevent repeating horrible events in the future.
Thus, George Takei positions his graphic memoir as a teaching tool and a way to increase awareness of the history of Japanese internment. Indeed, when teenaged George becomes curious about his childhood in the internment camps and searches through his textbooks and library books for information, he finds next to nothing about what happened. Near the end of They Called Us Enemy, George Takei says that one of the biggest issues in the United States is that the darker chapters of American history-such as the forced incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II-aren’t commonly talked about.
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