They Called Us Enemy Quotes

“Years later, the trauma of those experiences continued to haunt me. Most Japanese Americans from my parents' generation didn't like to talk about the internment with their children. As with many traumatic experiences, they were anguished by their memories and haunted by shame for something that wasn't their fault. Shame is a cruel thing. It should rest on the perpetrators but they don't carry it the way the victims do.”
― George Takei, They Called Us Enemy

“Shame is a cruel thing. It should rest on the perpetrators but they don't carry it the way the victims do.”
― George Takei, They Called Us Enemy

“That remains part of the problem—that we don't know the unpleasant aspects of American history...and therefore we don't learn the lesson those chapters have to teach us. So we repeat them over and over again.”
― George Takei, They Called Us Enemy

“People can do great things, George. They can come up with noble, shining ideals. But people are also fallible human beings, and we know they made a terrible mistake. - Takekuma Norman Takei”
― George Takei, They Called Us Enemy

“Memory is a wily keeper of the past, usually dependable, but at times, deceptive. Childhood memories are especially slippery. Sweet and so full of joy, they can often be a misrendering of the truth. For a child, that sweetness, out of context and intensely subjective, remains forever real. I know that I will always be haunted by the larger, vaguely remembered reality of the circumstances surrounding my childhood.”
― George Takei, They Called Us Enemy

“As with many traumatic experiences, they were anguished by their memories and haunted by shame for something that wasn’t their fault. Shame is a cruel thing. It should rest on the perpetrators but they don’t carry it the way victims do.”
― George Takei, They Called Us Enemy

“Our Democracy is a Participatory Democracy. Existentially it's dependent on people who cherish the shinning, highest ideals of our Democracy and actively engage in the political process.”
― George Takei, They Called Us Enemy

“The wheel of democracy turns slowly.”
― George Takei, They Called Us Enemy

“Shame is a cruel thing. It should rest on the perpetrators... but they don't carry it the way the victims do.”
― George Takei, They Called Us Enemy

“Justice grows out of recognition of ourselves in each other. That history can't be a sword to justify injustice or a shield against progress. That my liberty depends on you being free, too. But must be a manual for how to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. --President Barack Obama”
― George Takei, They Called Us Enemy

“As a kid, I couldn't grasp the injustice of the situation.”
― George Takei, They Called Us Enemy

“In 1944, dozens of these principaled objectors were transferred to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas. I'm proud of them, and I consider them just as heroic as those who fought on foreign battlefields. Though they responded in different ways -- caring for their families, fighting on the battlefield, or serving time for their principles -- all these Japanese Americans showed incredible courage and heroism. They proved that being American is not just for some people. They all made difficult choices to demonstrate their patriotism to this country, even when it rejected them.”
― George Takei, They Called Us Enemy

“As President Clinton said that day, "Rarely has a nation been so well served by a people it has so ill treated.”
― George Takei, They Called Us Enemy

“Mama was not going to allow anything… not even the United Sates government… to affect her family’s well-being.”
― George Takei, They Called Us Enemy

“I though everyone took vacations on a train with armed sentries at both ends of each car. It was an adventure.”
― George Takei, They Called Us Enemy

“He said we have no reports of spying, or sabotage, or fifth column activities by Japanese Americans… and that is ominous because the Japanese are inscrutable. You don’t know what they’re thinking. So it would be prudent to lock them up before they do anything. The absence of evidence was the evidence, for this attorney general.”
― George Takei, They Called Us Enemy

“Memory is a wily keeper of the past...usually dependable, but at times, deceptive.”
― George Takei, They Called Us Enemy