Young George and his family live a peaceful life in Los Angeles in the 1940s until armed guards arrive at their home after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. People of Japanese descent are quickly rounded up and punished by the U.S. Government during a period of strong anti-Japanese sentiment. Forced to live in work camps in California and Arkansas, the Takei family strives to maintain a normal upbringing for their three young kids. Packed with real historical details, a gripping autobiographical narrative, and beautiful illustrations, this book exemplifies the best of historical fiction and graphic novels alike.Publisher's description:
A stunning graphic memoir recounting actor/author/activist George Takei's childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps during World War II. As a four-year-old boy, George Takei found his own birth country at war with his father's -- and their entire family forced from their home into an uncertain future. In 1942, at the order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, every person of Japanese descent on the west coast was rounded up and shipped to one of ten "relocation centers," hundreds or thousands of miles from home, where they would be held for years under armed guard. This is Takei's firsthand account of those years behind barbed wire, the joys and terrors of growing up under legalized racism, his mother's hard choices, his father's faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future.