Like the famed trilogy March by Congressman John Lewis and his co-creators Andrew Aydin & Nate Powell, They Called Us Enemy tells its story as a flashback. Mama fades from the narrative several months after the family leaves the camps, once she convinces Daddy to focus on their family instead of the wider Japanese American community.Takei, along with his co-writers, Justin Eisinger and Steven Scott, eloquently tell the story of his family’s imprisonment. Throughout the family’s time in the camps, she teaches George and Henry to be good, kind, and to prioritize family and community.
Later, in a desperate bid to keep the family safe, Mama chooses to give up her citizenship and doesn’t get it reinstated until years later. To achieve this goal, they both answer no-no on the government’s loyalty questionnaire. As the war progresses, Mama and Daddy’s first priority is to keep the family safe and together. Once the family arrives at Rohwer, she reveals that she smuggled in her sewing machine-a symbol of her dedication to her family, and a way to be able to continue to care for them once they’re in the camp. She allows George and Henry to think that they’re on vacation and packs bags of goodies to keep them occupied on the five-day train journey to Camp Rohwer.
But rather than panic when the family is forced from their home and into internment camps, Mama instead throws herself into caring for her family in every way she can. As soon as she and Daddy hear the news that the Japanese Empire bombed Pearl Harbor, they fear that bad things will happen to the family-and ultimately, they’re correct. When George’s story starts in earnest in 1941, Mama is a devoted housewife who dedicates herself to caring for her children and husband.
She and Daddy marry in 1935 and over the next several years, Mama gives birth to four children (her first son dies at only a few months old). A Nisei, Mama was born in Sacramento-but to save her from attending segregated schools, her father sent her to Japan as a child. Mama is George, Henry, and Nancy Reiko’s mother and Daddy’s wife.
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