People do bad things. Even the “good” people can do unimaginable things. But if we’ve all done a bad thing, does that make us all bad people? No, of course not. It really depends on what exactly one does for them to be bad. Even the United States, famous for its American democracy and land of opportunities, has done some questionable things. For example, in the graphic novel, They Called Us Enemy, the story of George Takei’s family as well as many other Japanese Americans are described as they become falsely accused by the U.S. government in response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. But that leads us to question, how justifiable can one’s actions be?

The Pearl Harbor bombing took place on December 7, 1941 when the Japanese enacted a surprise aerial attack on the U.S. naval base in Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii. This military attack launched immediate discrimination on the Japanese-Americans and a declaration of war against Japan. President Franklin Roosevelt ordered a proclamation classifying all Japanese-Americans as an “alien enemy” and took more measures against these Japanese-Americans for the defense of the country. They were kicked out of their homes and sent to internment camps, deprived of opportunities, and faced legalized-racism.

When news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor spread, George Takei’s family as well as many other Japanese-Americans were evacuated from their homes and sent on a journey of terror. George Takei describes how his family had lived in the horse stalls and was constantly monitored by the American soldiers as if they were criminals. He remembers the fear in his mothers eyes and the pain and anguish his father had to endure trying to keep the family calm. When they reached the interment camps, they were treated like prisoners, placed behind barbed wires and assigned certain blocks. Other Japanese-Americans were separated from their families as their husbands were arrested for simply being in high positions within the Japanese-American communities. However, despite all of this George Takei’s father still held true to his faith in American democracy. But why?

“American democracy is still the best,” his father would say. And that was true. George Takei’s father explains to him that it was for the U.S. that there was freedom, independence and positive change. So while the U.S. had devastated many Japanese-Americans, we cannot directly classify the actions of the country as antagonistic or extremely wrong. It is not necessarily right to blame the country for a fault, when these actions were a precaution for the American people. It was also the United States who would compensate for the Japanese-Americans many years later that had been affected by the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

But that’s what makes this difficult. How justifiable can one’s actions be? In a real sense, the United States did something horrible to these Japanese-Americans, but it was out of necessity for the safety of their country. Maybe they could have done something different. But would it have worked?

There is no real answer to this question. We can say it depends on what a person has done and what their motive was, but there will always be some people who may argue that it was wrong and there will be others who argue the other. However, despite all of this, it is important to acknowledge that while it is unclear how to justify one’s actions, we can certainly raise awareness for those that have been affected. We can work together to initiate change to promise that this prejudice and discrimination may never happen again. Not only we need to respond to this current Anti-Asian violence. We can take action to share George Takei’s story and educate others of what the Japanese-Americans had tolerated during World War II.