They Called Us Enemy by George Takei is a short comic novel in the perspective of George Takei as a child and his family during World War II as a Japanese-American. In this novel, George and his family are taken to concentration camps and were forced to leave behind their homes and their future. This reminded me of when I read an article of a 16 year old boy, Stanley Hayami, who was also incarcerated to a concentration camp during World War II (https://www.learningforjustice.org/magazine/fall-2020/we-still-havent-learned-from-this ). They were both Japanese, and both forced to leave their future behind them. Hundreds of thousands of Japanese-Americans were being treated as the enemy although they lived in America, because of their race.

The U.S. government believed that if they were Japanese, they were considered the enemy, and they should be imprisoned. Hayami only thought of what his future would be like, what would have happened to his current high school grades, and what he was going to eat tomorrow. This was embarrassing for the U.S., and the Japanese-Americans must have gone through so many struggles; anxiety, depression, regret, trauma, guilt, it felt like the blame was on them. Hayami was concentrated to the camp with his family. In both stories, Takei and Hayami both had their families to protect them.

This also disturbed my thoughts; conflicts with the bigger parties only cause the citizens of their countries to suffer. It’s unfair and selfish, and it definitely was during WWII. Higher powers only though of themselves–they never thought before they acted, and they never thought of the consequences. Although war has ended today, it can easily start again between two countries that are conflicting with each other. The U.S. has done so much to strengthen their power and become one of two most powerful countries, but what they’ve done to achieve their goal traumatized many Japanese-Americans.