Reviews tagging 'Deportation'

They Called Us Enemy by Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott, George Takei

12 reviews

driedmintleaves's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative medium-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Deportation, Racism, and Confinement

magpienicky's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative reflective sad fast-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement and Racism

Moderate: Violence, Racial slurs, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Grief, War, and Deportation

Minor: Child death and Death

pacifickat's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

"Justice grows out of recognition of ourselves in each other, [...] that my liberty depends on you being free, too;[...] that history can't be a sword to justify injustice or shield against progress, [...] but must he a manual for how to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past."
- Pres. Barack Obama, They Called Us Enemy p. 203

This book should be a national treasure. One of the best historical memoirs I have ever read.  The messages it contains are even more vital and pressing today than ever before.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Racism, Racial slurs, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Death, Bullying, Grief, Hate crime, War, Deportation, and Gaslighting

Minor: Police brutality and Violence

Incarceration, racial injustice, generational trauma

becksusername's review against another edition

dark informative reflective sad fast-paced

4.25

I learned from this book, but felt Takei was weirdly positive about "American" "democracy"

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Religious bigotry, Racial slurs, Deportation, Confinement, and Islamophobia

hmetwade's review against another edition

emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Racism, Child death, War, Racial slurs, Confinement, Deportation, Forced institutionalization, Grief, and Hate crime

craftingcatlady's review against another edition

emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

A wonderful and reflective look at George Takei’s childhood, growing up during World War II’s Japanese Internment Camps, and how it helped to shape him into the actor and activist his is today. 

History books look back at history and tells it from an adult’s lenses. But George, as he is talking about his time at the camps, shows us the same history but through the lens and understanding of a child. The contrast’s painted of how he and his siblings handled the situation versus how his parents did, while remaining strong for their children, is striking. 

I have watched Takei as Sulu in Star Trek growing up, and I had no idea the breadth of his acting career, nor the activism he is involved in. Discovering this, adds another layer onto his Sulu character for me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Deportation, Racism, Confinement, Violence, and War

Moderate: Racial slurs

livlamentloathe's review against another edition

informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

Fascinating, heartbreaking, and hard to read. It was well told, but it was hard for the very reasons Takei lists at the end of the book: history is repeating itself. I knew very little of the Japanese internment until maybe college? Most of what I’ve learned has come from reading—unassigned/not for school.

I implore everyone to read this book. Or anything similar to understand the actions of our government. Not to “understand” as in “agree with,” but to acknowledge how bloody and disreputable our history is. The Germans weren’t the only villains of the second world war.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Xenophobia, Hate crime, and Confinement

Moderate: War, Colonisation, and Deportation

markwillnevercry's review against another edition

informative sad fast-paced

4.5

I wanted to read this graphic novel for a while, but never had time or could not get it and as with many things that you wait for a while to read - you start to suspect that it will be not as good as you want it to be. However, this was good. I did, however, take a pretty long time that this was the story by George Takei, but that is just because I do not read author names. This was really well written and was very informative. The US sucks.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Cursing, Pregnancy, Confinement, Bullying, Police brutality, War, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism, and Deportation

steveatwaywords's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

4.25

That Takei has produced this necessary graphic memoir/history is vitally important, as it clearly opens the door for many in the United States to learning about a much-omitted chapter of our race relations; and for younger readers, it is a gentler (while educational) initial step into understanding ourselves, how our history is created for us, how we be a more powerful democracy for knowing it.

Takei is clear where his youthful memory ends and his historical research begins, stepping back from his moments in these internment camps--some painful, some sentimental--to offer us political background, court cases, speeches of key congressional figures. He also offers us a stark look at the transition back, not just for his family, but for tens of thousands of others. He also offers several pages of historical records and photographs which solidify the illustrated text. 

The story is well told, personal and focused. And its sincerity is genuine, of course. If it finds difficulty in navigating the narrative it is in finding the right balance between offering the complexity of the political situation around him and streamlining its presentation for the format of the work. There are no easy answers to it: hopefully, what he reveals is enough to provoke readers to search more. In this way, Takei and his team may have done well to offer directions for readers new to this dark history to explore further. 

Even so, for youthful readers, perhaps those as early as ages 8 or 10, this is powerful stuff. For adults who find this book, it's a worthwhile underscoring of our past to better understand its many consequences today. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement

Moderate: War, Racism, Racial slurs, Hate crime, and Deportation

bellebookstitch666's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, Hate crime, and Deportation