Activist and Actor George Takei’s Autobiographical picture book about his childhood years in incarceration camps during World War II
On February 19, 1942, George Takei’s life changed forever when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the mass forced removal and incar-
ceration of Americans and non-citizens of Japanese descent living on the West Coast. George Takei and his family and over 125,000 others were declared enemies of the United States, forcibly removed from their homes, and held in various places that ranged from temporary detention facilities to concentration camps.
MY LOST FREEDOM by Star Trek actor, activist, and icon GEORGE TAKEI, illustrated by MICHELLE LEE, is a firsthand account of his childhood years at three different incarceration camps. It is about how his parents kept the family safe in their new “homes”—the Santa Anita race-track, swampy Camp Rohwer, and desolate Tule Lake. Takei entered the camps at the age of five and would remain there until the conclusion of the war three years later, in 1945.
In MY LOST FREEDOM, George Takei looks back at his memories to help children today understand what it feels like to be treated as an enemy by your own country.
“My childhood behind barbed wire fences is the reason I became an activist,” says George Takei. “I have vivid memories about what happened to me when the soldiers pounded on our door, how I was scared and how my parents helped my siblings and me to feel safe in our bewildering new homes. It was clear that the story about the injustices Japanese Americans faced should also be told in a way that young children and their caregivers could understand. Especially in today’s political climate, my mission is to convey this chapter of American history to children so that we can all grow up knowing both the fragility and the importance of democracy and our participation in it.”
Featuring powerful, meticulously researched watercolor paintings by illustrator Michelle Lee, MY LOST FREEDOM is a story of a family’s courage, a young boy’s resilience, and the importance of staying true to yourself in the face of injustice.
GEORGE TAKEI (he/him) is a civil rights activist, social media superstar, Grammy-nominated recording artist, New York Times bestselling author, and pioneering actor whose career has spanned six decades. He has appeared in more than forty feature films and hundreds of television roles, most famously as Hikaru Sulu in Star Trek, and he has used his success as a platform to fight for social justice, LGBTQ+ rights, and marriage equality.
His advocacy is personal: during World War II, George spent his childhood unjustly imprisoned in US incarceration camps along with more than 125,000 other Japanese Americans. He now serves as chairman emeritus and a member of the Japanese American National Museum’s board of trustees. George served on the board of the Japan–United States Friendship Commission and, in 2004, was given the Gold Rays with Rosette of the Order of the Rising Sun by the emperor of Japan for his contribution to US-Japan relations.
