They Called Us Enemy

I did not initially include this book until I took a class of middle school English students to the library and more than half of them went to the graphic novel shelves. Who better to tell the story of the U.S. version of concentration camps – internment camps for loyal U.S. citizens of Japanese descent – than George Takei of Star Trek fame (and more)?

Pictures really do tell more than a thousand words. Takei’s autobiographical novel offers moments of joy but paints an infuriating picture of the United States at its worst in the Twentieth Century. The loyalty of… show more.

This book is a must-read, especially for YA readers who enjoy graphic novels. The story follows actor George Takei’s family during their imprisonment in a Japanese internment camp during World War II. Before reading this book, I knew this dark chapter was a fact of American history, but the moving illustrations and powerful story invited me to consider more deeply the danger of labelling people as “other.”