They Called Us Enemy Book

They Called Us Enemy Graphic Memoir: What Actually Happened and Where to Get It

I read this book at least twice. Once when it first came out in 2019 and again last year because my kid's school assigned it for a project. The title is They Called Us Enemy, written by George Takei, Terry Takagi, and others. It's a graphic memoir about what happened to Japanese Americans during World War II after Pearl Harbor. The story follows young George Takei and his family being forced into an internment camp in Rohwer, Arkansas. It covers the legal challenges too, especially Korematsu v. United States, which is where the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the exclusion orders. Takei spent decades not talking about it publicly, then finally decided to tell his own story instead of letting it disappear from the record. You can find the book on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and direct from publishers like Top Shelf Productions. It's available as hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook. The ISBN for the hardcover is 978-1603095054. Don't overpay for first editions unless you're collecting, because the content is identical across all printings.

One thing people get wrong about this book is thinking it's just a sad story. It's not. It's technically precise about how the legal machinery worked. Executive Order 9066 didn't mention race by name. The author makes that point clearly without being heavy-handed about it. The exclusion orders were issued by military authorities, and compliance was enforced by regular law enforcement. People who didn't go were arrested. That's the operational detail most summaries skip over. Another nuance that isn't obvious: Takei's original claim against the government was dropped after he was convicted in Korematsu's case, and it only got reinstated decades later through a coram nobis petition. This procedural history matters if you're using the book for research or a paper, because the legal timeline isn't straightforward. The Supreme Court didn't formally overturn Korematsu until 2018 in Trump v. Hawaii, and even then it was framed around immigration authority rather than a direct reversal of the 1944 ruling. I ran into an issue when I was trying to use this for a high school class about a decade ago. The publisher included some photographs and maps in certain editions but not in others, and the ebook version compresses some of the artwork in ways that make the camp layouts harder to read. If you're assigning this to students, go with the print edition, preferably the one with the full-color interior. The digital versions are fine for personal reading but the visual clarity matters for understanding the camp geography.

The audiobook is narrated by Takei himself and runs about five hours. It's decent but not exceptional. He reads with appropriate gravity but sometimes rushes through the legal exposition sections. If you want the full experience, the print or ebook version with the artwork intact is the way to go. Pitfall to watch for: some retailers list this under "graphic novel" and others under "memoir" or "history." The categorization affects how it shows up in search results. If you're looking for the specific Takei edition and find something else, check the author credits. There are other books about internment camps that get mixed into the same search results. The book is suitable for middle school readers and up. Some passages deal with the reality of imprisonment and the psychological toll on families, which might be difficult for younger kids. The artwork is appropriate for all ages. The legal discussion is accessible but assumes a basic understanding of how the American court system works.

If you're researching this period, Pair this with Roger Daniels' Concentration Camps on the Home Front for the broader context, or simply Y. Ichioka and Yuji Ichioka's collected documents on the wartime incarceration. The Takei book is an excellent entry point but it covers the personal side, not the full historiography. There's a stage play adaptation too, if you run across mentions of it. It's based on the same material but structured differently. Don't confuse the two if you're looking for the book specifically.