Summary: Pages 28–58

In February 2017, George Takei was invited to speak at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in New York on the 75th anniversary of Executive Order 9066. Japanese Americans refer to this as the Day of Remembrance. During his speech, George noted his conflicted feelings about President Roosevelt. After this, his childhood story picks up where it left off.

In the spring of 1942, George’s family disembarked from the train at a racetrack. Each family was assigned a horse stall. George, 5 years old, was excited and didn’t grasp the humiliation his parents felt. Daddy and Mama worked hard for their life and home and were now forced to sleep in a barn that stinks of manure. They took their children to the showers each day, trying to stay as sanitary as possible, but the baby developed a fever anyway. Mama took the children to get medicine. George became sick, too. The Takeis tried to create a sense of normalcy; George went to school under the grandstand.

After several months, guards ordered them to pack up and get ready to leave. New arrivals at the racetrack got to live in what young George thought of as “luxury” in barracks built in the parking lot. At the train station, guards shouted and gave each person an identification tag to wear. George thought this was his train ticket, but his parents again felt dehumanized. The train cars had guards at each end, as if the occupants were criminals. Many of the occupants were sick. George asked Daddy where they were going, and his father told him they were going on a very long vacation to Arkansas. This intrigued George, and he couldn’t understand why people were upset at this exciting adventure.

As they came to each town, guards commanded the passengers to draw the shades so they wouldn’t be seen by the townspeople. George and Henry didn’t understand and assumed this was just how things happen. On the second day, the train stopped, and guards shouted that everyone must get out. Some feared they would be shot, but younger Japanese Americans translated for older passengers that this is a chance for them to get out and exercise. Off the train, George threw dirt at Henry, and a man told Daddy the boys are lively. To young George, it seemed as if his father was always in command of the situation, but looking back, Takei can’t imagine how his father was feeling.

Briefly returning to the FDR Museum speech, Takei explained that his father bore much of the family’s pain. He said that in his teenage years George and his father would talk about the internment, or incarceration, of Japanese Americans. His father would explain that American democracy is a people’s democracy. People can do great things, but they are human and make mistakes—sometimes terrible ones.

The story moves back in time to the exercise break. When soldiers ordered everyone back on a train, George reached up and touched a soldier’s gun. The gun was hot from the sun, and George yelped. The soldier told George he wouldn’t do that again and lifted him onto the train. Mama gave each boy their own canteen of water that she had packed, worried about the water supply on the trip. Mama also helped stave off boredom for the boys with a bag of snacks and candy. The children experienced the trip as exciting and adventurous while their parents were frightened and worried. Mama stayed busy with her family, refusing to allow even the government to hurt their well-being. Daddy was sad.

Takei says that childhood memories can play tricks. His are full of joy but are deceptive, like the time he hid under train seats only to be pulled out by a soldier. George says he will likely always be haunted by his past, though he didn’t really understand it while it was happening.

On October 7, 1942, the train moved into Arkansas. The soldiers shouted something that George and Henry thought was “roar,” but it was really “Rohwer,” the name of the camp. A guard wrote the family’s housing assignment on Daddy’s identification tag. The family loaded their things into a truck and then got in. George was excited to ride in a truck. Camp Rohwer had 33 blocks, which each housed 250 people. At its peak, it housed 8,500 Japanese Americans.

Analysis: Pages 28–58

As the family experiences being ripped from their home and being housed in terrible conditions, young George and Henry largely feel excited about all the new “adventures” they are experiencing. Much of this is due to his parents’ efforts to establish normalcy in their lives, even while living in a horse stall and riding a train leading to an uncertain future. The narrative tells two stories—one of the children and one of their parents and other adults, steeped in fear and sadness. George begins to explore the idea that memories, particularly of childhood, don’t necessarily represent the whole truth.

Even though young George feels a sense of excitement at the events unfolding, looking back as an adult, he can see how humiliating they must have been for his parents, who worked hard for the life they had in Los Angeles. Being treated like animals is demeaning and reveals how little the US government thinks of Japanese Americans. When the family is given identification tags to wear, their individual identities are taken away, along with their freedom. In fact, it is at this point that George points out how American democratic ideals have been betrayed by the treatment of Japanese Americans.