Tramway Reviews #3: They Called us Enemy

Welcome back to the Tramway,

and welcome back to another entry of Tramway Reviews. This' a book I wanted to read for a long time, and I'm glad I finally got to it. I finished it Monday August 24th, 2020, and felt so inspired to write a review that I've written this before the (now published) second review in the series.

    Today, I will be reviewing "They Called Us Enemy," By George Takei, with Steven Scott, and art by Harmony Becker.

They Called us Enemy cover. Ⓒ Penguin Random House, Cover used under fair use.

    "They Called us Enemy follows the story of George Takei's family as they're forced from their home during World War II to the Japanese Internment camps, that President FDR made legal with Executive Order 9066. The story follows the difficult decisions that Takei and other families had to make while behind barbed wire, facing racism around them.

    I love this book. It's one of the most important comics I've read. "They Called us Enemy" is in the genre of autobiography comics, and is as important as Art Spiegelman's "Maus." "They Called us Enemy" gives us a window into the past and one of America's darkest sins. We see the cruel living spaces, the dehumanizing effect of internment, and how the Japanese American community responded.

    One thing I learned from the book was that the US allowed some Japanese Americans to serve, albeit in a segregated unit, and they fought courageously in Europe against the Nazis. There's an irony of fighting for freedom for a country that stole yours away, preluding to the Vietnam War...

    Another thing I learned is that Japanese Americans could rescind their citizenship, though the motives behind the offer was racist. Essentially, America wanted to do a prisoner exchange with Japan for US citizens held by the Japanese Empire. In reality, Japanese Americans were extorted to rescind their citizenship to stay with their families in the camp, for fear of anti-Japanese Racism outside of the camps.

    Takei's story pulls at your heart. To continue, we move into minor spoilers for the biography. (Minor spoilers for the next two paragraphs)

New Year's Resolutions & General Update

Welcome to the Tramway,

Hello readers. Thank you for reading today's post for Tug & Tram Blogging. Did you have a safe new year’s eve? I hope that, however you celebrated, you had a fun, but safe, time. 

Firstly, I want to give a big thank you to everyone who has read my Lady Luck novella preview. In case you missed my last post, as a Christmas Eve "gift" I published the first chapter of Lady Luck for FREE. You can still go read it, to get an idea of what the novella will look like.

While the project has another round of editing to go through, this time from my school's publication board (the Pinchpenny Press), I feel confident about the novella. Thanks as always to my friend and colleague Cristina Jantz of tidbitediting.com for her editing and feedback.

Moving on to our next topic, I've noticed that writers often post writer’s new year resolutions. Not wanting to miss out on the fun, here’s new year writing resolutions.