George Takei to Discuss Growing Up in Japanese Interment Camp at Japan Society

Film and television star, pop culture icon and social media powerhouse George Takei (Star Trek, "Heroes") has been blazing trails as an activist over the last decade, championing gay rights and marriage equality in the U.S., and in recent years sharing his childhood experiences of being imprisoned in a Japanese-American internment camp during World War II.

"Too few people know about that dark chapter of American history," Takei told Daily Show's Jon Stewart in 2014, "when American citizens of Japanese ancestry were summarily rounded up with no charges, no trial no due process--the core pillar of our justice system--and put in barbed wire prison camps simply because we happened to look like the people that bombed Pearl Harbor."

In George Takei: From Barbed Wire to Broadway, Takei shares memories from the troubling chapter of American history when some 120,000 innocent Japanese-Americans were forcibly relocated from their homes. He'll discuss what it was like to live in an internment camp and how it affected his family, and reflect on how the tensions between liberty and security in the 1940s resemble tensions today as some political figures call for a ban on Muslims entering the U.S. He also discusses how his experience led to the new musical, Allegiance, currently on Broadway starring Takei himself, and which Billboard called a "rare WWII-era piece of drama that actually feels fresh and necessary". Taking place Monday, January 25, 6:30 pm, at Japan Society, the talk is moderated by author and legal scholar Kermit Roosevelt, who wrote the critically acclaimed historical novel Allegiance (Regan Arts, 2015), and is followed by a reception.

Taken from Los Angeles to the swamps of Arkansas by train, Takei and his family spent nearly five years in a camp behind barbed wire fences and under constant surveillance by sentries with machine guns.

"Children are amazingly adaptable," Takei told Democracy Now's Amy Goodman. "And so, the barb wire fence became no more intimidating than a chain link fence around a school playground. And the sentry towers were just part of the landscape. We adjusted to lining up three times a day to eat lousy food in a noisy mess hall. And at school, we began every school day with the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. I could see the barb wire fence and the sentry towers right outside my schoolhouse window as I recited the words 'with liberty and justice for all,' an innocent child unaware of the irony."

Upon reconciling his feelings with the injustice of the incident, Takei told Stewart something his father said that helped the most: "He said our democracy is a people's democracy and it can be as great as people can be, but it's also be as fallible as people are."

George Takei's acting career has spanned five decades, with more than 40 feature films and hundreds of television guest-starring roles to his credit. Now a community activist, Takei serves as chair of the council of governors of East West Players, the nation's foremost Asian Pacific American theater. He is also a member of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest national lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender political organization. Takei is Chairman Emeritus of the Japanese American National Museum's Board of Trustees; a member of the US-Japan Bridging Foundation Board of Directors; and served on the Board of the Japan-United States Friendship Commission under President Bill Clinton. In recognition of his contribution to the Japan-United States relationship, in 2004, Takei was conferred with the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette, by His Majesty, the Emperor of Japan. Among his many accomplishments are a Grammy nomination Takei shared with Leonard Nimoy, in 1987, in the Best Spoken Word or Non-Musical Recording category. He received a star on Hollywood Boulevard's Walk of Fame in 1986. And in 1991, Takei left his signature and hand print, in cement, in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre. As an author, Takei's first book, his autobiography, To the Stars, was published in 1994; and in 2012 and 2013 he published his second and third books, Oh Myyy! There Goes The Internet, and its sequel, Lions And Tigers And Bears: The Internet Strikes Back. Takei and his husband, Brad, were married at the Japanese American National Museum on September 14, 2008.

Kermit Roosevelt, great-great-grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt, is a professor of constitutional law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and the author of Allegiance (Regan Arts, 2015), the critically acclaimed historical novel. Born in Washington, DC, he attended Harvard University and Yale Law School. Before joining the Penn faculty, he clerked for D.C. Circuit Judge Stephen F. Williams and Supreme Court Justice David Souter and practiced law in Chicago. His experiences clerking and practicing law informed his first novel, the national campus bestseller In the Shadow of the Law (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2005), which won the Philadelphia Atheneum Annual Literary Award and was selected as a best book of the year by the Christian Science Monitor. Roosevelt works in a diverse range of fields, focusing on constitutional law and conflict of laws. His book, Conflict of Laws (Foundation Press 2010) offers an accessible analytical overview of conflicts. His prior book, The Myth of Judicial Activism: Making Sense of Supreme Court Decisions (Yale, 2006) sets out standards by which citizens can determine whether the Supreme Court is abusing its authority.

Japan Society's Talks+ Program examines vital issues and themes in modern Japanese art, culture and design. Programming is designed to inform and to provide a gateway through which Americans can appreciate the powerful global influence of Japan's culture and its many trend-defining artisans. Programs bring together experts and practitioners for provocative discussions on diverse topics including aesthetics, consumer culture and cuisine. More at www.japansociety.org/programs/talks.

Founded in 1907, Japan Society is a multidisciplinary hub for global leaders, artists, scholars, educators, and English and Japanese-speaking audiences. At the Society, more than 100 events each year feature sophisticated, topically relevant presentations of Japanese art and culture and open, critical dialogue on issues of vital importance to the U.S., Japan and East Asia. An American nonprofit, nonpolitical organization, the Society cultivates a constructive, resonant and dynamic relationship between the people of the U.S. and Japan.

George Takei: From Barbed Wire to Broadway takes place Monday, January 25, at 6:30 pm. Japan Society is located at 333 East 47th Street between First and Second avenues (accessible by the 4/5/6 and 7 subway at Grand Central or the E and M subway at Lexington Avenue). Tickets are $20/$16 Japan Society members, seniors and students, and may be purchased in person at Japan Society, at www.japansociety.org, or by calling the box office at 212-715-1258. For more information, call 212-832-1155 or visit the website.

Talks+ Programs at Japan Society are generously sponsored by Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG). United Airlines is the exclusive U.S. Airlines sponsor of Talks+ Programs at Japan Society. Additional support is provided by Chris A. Wachenheim, the Sandy Heck Lecture Fund, and Dr. Yuichiro Kuwama.

Photo by Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images for GLAAD

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