They Called Us Enemy is a graphic novel written by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven R. Scott, published in 2019 and talks about a child’s perspective of the wartime and how the Japanese were locked up just for being Japanese.

“On December 8, 1941, Congress approved President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s request for a declaration of war on Japan with only one dissenter. The vote was 82–0 in the Senate and 388–1 in the House”U.S. Capitol – Visitor Center (.gov)

With that the Japanese Americans were locked up in a camp because they were untrustworthy citizens because of the times people were aggressive and offensive with everything that seemed different to them, IS DIFFERENT BAD? Why is everyone so scared of different things?

With this, vandalism, hatred and all kinds of negative actions fell on the Japanese-American citizens. Why did someone who grew up with you but his great-grandfather was born somewhere else want to hurt you? Here it was not only a social discrimination but also a political one, the banks locked them up, they were put together in a miserable place just because they came from a Japanese DNA, although times have moved on and today discrimination IS A CRIME, what would happen if they If they stayed in their homes and people still vandalized their houses, cars and belongings, I don’t think it would be a safe place for them. Although I am totally against what they did at that time, it was the best decision for the safety of all those Japanese-Americans who, due to the discrimination of the people, could have been injured and although they were forced and could not choose, it was the best for their safety. This is how the world evolves, all that discrimination was not going to be solved overnight, so they had to separate them to leave them safe as well. 

The world evolves from mistakes. We just have to make sure that society becomes better and everyone puts their grain of sand and we don’t make the same mistake again.

Mariana Britez Diaz.