If you think it can’t happen here, remember that it already did. In 1942 soldiers came with rifles to our home and ordered us out. They put us in internment camps. Most of us were citizens.
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I remember, they put you and your family in the camp at Santa Anita race track. Only a few miles away from my home. Thank you for sticking with the U.S. after such a horrific ordeal as that. You are one of our greatest treasures.
I recently saw Forgiveness--a play in Stratford Ontario, based on a Canada Reads finalist book from 2018. It is the story of a Canadian soldier detained in a Japanese camp, in parallel with a Japanese Canadian detained in Canadian internment.
There is no both-sides of the situation--it is a sobering reflection of the awful way people treat each other. We need to do better. I highly recommend both the book and the play!
It should never be forgotten. Canada did the same during WW2 to families of Japanese descent- they lost everything and were shipped to internment camps.
Thanks George. If America is to progress it must accept the mistakes it has made. As adults we recognize our mistakes and resolve not to make them again. That's how we grow.
WE THE PEOPLE must post every picture/video of these kidnappers. If we’re able, post their home address, where they and their spouses work, where their children go to school and their names. If we’re able, conduct citizens arrests wherever they are, etc.
and it's only 150 days in
once they get the routine down pat
it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what they are going to do next after they run out of migrants in 150 weeks
We continue to be astonished by the Nazis & the people who stood by & saying we wouldn't let that happen. It's 2025 & it happening & we are standing by. Lessons were not learned.
In the run-up to the first gulf war, the FBI interviewed middle easterners in my hometown, most of whom were mutli-generations born there. I realized then that the internment camps could easily come back.
I know you know more about this than most of us want to, George. Thank you for reminding us of what we are capable of enduring and capable of besting. Hopefully, like Orwell, we read it as a warning and not an instruction manual.
If you agree, please get on the phone or e-mail tell your reps in DC what you think about ICE/mass deportations. It only takes a few minutes and it doesn't cost any money. We don't need money in politics. We just need people to participate. https://www.nationalfinancialplan.com
We should not be doomed to repeat some of our worst moments in history…. but magazealots have likely banned that book from their library. #LiveLongandProsper @georgetakei.bsky.social
German Americans tried to hide their ethnicity out of fear of being arrested as spies. Never knew this until I started researching why my mother didn’t speak German or allow her mother to speak it to us.
Thank you Mr Takei. Little is ever said about the German Americans and Italian Americans who were also interred. Not as many and not as long. Nobody mentions the countries that ignored what the nazis were doing.
How do we stop this, George? What advice can you give us to not let this happen? We need help, we need a leader to show us the way. Someone who knows how to beat this
It wasn’t the Nazi Gestapo back then, but similar tactics and Trump’s Gestapo are doing it today! Trump has already said he’s going after his “enemies & he’s doing it!
To all of my Black sis and bros. Get active, stay active. If Maggot Trump and his nazi regime are successful, they are coming for us. Believe we are next. We must let them know, don't come for us unless we call you! We are not safe. They hate us more than any other group. Get Busy!
it happened in canada too. even our revered dr david suzuki and his family were stripped of everything; house, business,almost all of their possessions; and shipped to an internment camp in the slocan valley for the duration of ww2. his dad was separated from them and forced to work elsewhere. 💔🇨🇦🕊
⚠️Send the following to your reps:
🇺🇲Dear Congressperson, my ask of you:
1. Object to unanimous consent in the Senate.
2. Never vote in favor of Republican legislation.
3. Blue slip every judicial nominee.
4. Vote out Schumer.
🇺🇲Use these like the superpowers they are.
You looked different! This has happened so many times since 1933 also voices were different. Yeah my dad saw a black man the first time in 1940 at age 7 but it was curiosity not racism. The HATE (also for LBTQI Hater Rowling) came with the FAR right and it's hate filled acolytes.
JD Vance, Mike Johnson, House&Senate republicans, Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh, Roberts, Gorsuch, are aiding and abetting accomplices to trump’s lawlessness and should all be removed from office. Fox propaganda should face charges and fines for all their lies/defamation.
It happened before 1092, when colonizers murdered 95% of the people Indigenous to this land so they could steal the land. All of this land, y'all is #StolenLand #CulturalGenocide#LandBack
It was wrong then and it’s incredibly wrong now. History repeating itself. Can’t learn doomed to repeat. We are all in danger. Unless you’re wildly rich. #EatTheRich #End47Early
70% of white males and 52% of white women voted For Trump. Majority of whites are flaming racists. I want a cosmopolitan multi-cultural nation but too many didn't vote. America's has an ugly history that keeps coming back besides all the progress made in 250 years..
But they’d have to build these camps. Trump doesn’t have the camps needed to do massive arrests. They don’t even have enough detention centers for their ‘illegal’ hunt.
i just don’t understand how they legally do en mass these things to people, that are illegal if done by one normal citizen. The more i learn, the more I realize, the Government doesn’t have legal codes to abide by, it enforces law on us, but isn’t obligated to follow those they enforce.
I feel like America is being punished for all of its past atrocities, and it is our duty to finally STAND UP, SPEAK OUT against the evils in our land. We are all one. A better world awaits. 🤍
I remember you kept a lot of us going during Covid. I even accidentally joined one of your online meetings and I think I saw your surprised look before I got off. Anyway, thank you for sticking it out with us. Star Trek before Star Wars 🥳✊👊
I'm so sorry Uncle George. That was unforgivable and I thank you for testifying before hostile congress re unfair treatment of others. We made the trek to McKinney, Texas to see the awful wooden "houses" on stilts people were forced to live in. It's humbling. Husband's BFF was half Japanese. Cried.
It’s happened many times in many forms in the US that we choose to forget. Mexicans and other Central Americans today as regionally native mixed descent are being treated like Franco Americans were a generation or two ago. By more recent NA immigrants! This ‘country’ is based on a lot of ‘othering.’
If you think you can sit back and watch this shit happening all over, think again. If you are unwilling to fight, and fight hard for everyone's freedom, you will be next to be drug off to a concentration camp.
Should we all start cosplaying like them and wear dog collars? Seriously - these nazi goons with face masks, unmarked cars, etc. - what if the rest of us dressed like priests/ministers? 🍀
Thank you for never being afraid to speak out. What happened to you is wrong. What's happening to so many others now is wrong. We *MUST* stand together and do everything in our power as individuals, as communities, and as a collective, to stand up against tyranny. Thank you for all you do. 🖤
Purely coincidentally but I’m currently watching The Terror:Infamy for the first time. The supernatural aspect pales in comparison to the descent into authoritarianism and brutality of the internment camps.
My first Sensei, here in Hawaii, was one of the Nisei Soldiers who fought in WWII to prove loyalty to America and to prove that he and his family were citizens. His name was Shigeru Fujimoto. And I hate the horrible ignorance of racism with all my being! Ignorant ice agents must be stopped!
Unpleasant as it undoubtedly was, the fact that America was at war with Japan, which had just launched an unprovoked attack on America, gave a legitimate pretext for interring Japanese Americans.
There is no such pretext for what the US government is currently doing.
“legitimate”❔
funny then, how this did NOT happen to Germans & Italians (aka white people) #WWII #Japanese = #YellowMenace VS #Nazi #German #fascist #Italian
There was no legitimate pretext even with Pearl Harbor. They were still Americans who had their rights violated and their lives stripped away from them without due process.
Then why didn’t they do the same to anyone with heritage from an Axis powers country? It was a racist, broad-brushing policy of imprison and ask questions later, damning the lives of all involved for no reason other than their heritage. It’s indefensible.
Let’s just make sure that, once the opportunity to do so emerges, we do not withdraw into civility and let all these lawless fascists go free. Those supporting the overthrow of the United States are people who BELONG in internment camps, and every one of them will need to be raided and rounded up.
and every one of those kidnapping thugs who has no badge ID and whereas the face mask will need to be subject to massive civil suits whenever they can be identified.
I have said it before; but, it deserves to be repeated: I deeply regret that men in our country would even consider that there was any shred of decency in that 😢 I was not there; but, plz accept my apologies
The big difference, is these folks aren’t being kept in a facility here. These folks are being shipped out to countries that are not their homelands, and put into subhuman or very violent conditions.
They said they were going after criminals. I know that there are some
who are very violent criminals. They can send THOSE back to the country of origin!
Many of the people being kidnapped are already in the immigration process. They are hard workers and came into the country at the border and started their immigration process at the border.
We should prove they are criminals first. Otherwise, they just need to point to every POC and call them a criminal -- basically what they are doing right now.
Yes! Did everyone forget that DJT received due process for his crimes and a jury convicted him. You would think that poor people doing manual labor for a living could get at least as much. Citizenship is not a requirement.
I have a relative who is an immigration judge. She’s now dealing with the criminal element. Honestly, I thought that would be rare because one would think they’d want to be invisible. I have learned that there are those who really are violent. THOSE are
They are all innocent until proven guilty. If those ICE wanted criminals, they wouldn't be searching through hospitals, schools, and workplaces. They don't want criminals because hardened criminals would fight back.
the people who need to be incarcerated somewhere. Not the harmless gay hairdresser, or the young family man who had a court order giving him permission to be here, that they admitted was deported in error but declared that he wasn’t coming back. When in Tennessee, he was stopped in a truck with
They are arresting them when they go to immigration court doing what they need to do to become legal. It's a good way to create a mistrust of your legal systems. Who's next ? 👀😢
Former enslaved Black Americans migrated from the South to Los Angeles in two major waves, seeking better economic opportunities and to escape racial violence and discrimination. shaping the demographics and culture of Los Angeles, particularly in areas like South Los Angeles and Central Avenue.
In 1942 it was the Japanese, in 2025 it's immigrants, exlusively from our southern border, and soon enough it'll be everyone who doesn't look, think, act and pray the way Trump and Miller think America should look, think, act and pray.
As an American friend of mine who is of Japanese extraction (her parents and other relatives were rounded up), internment camps is a soft term and fundamentally incorrect. These were concentration camps for racially Japanese Americans. Internment camps were for foreigners.
What happened to you, your family, and the thousands of other Japanese Americans is a national disgrace that these cruel assholes are running proud to replicate 😡😡😡
Some Italians were also put in camps. The govt's position also conveyed the sentiment that it was ok to hate certain ethnicities so there was a lot of unofficial abuse going on as well
If U believe in democracy placed 1 of these on your lawn 4 everybody 2 see. People could see that not just on the weekends but during the week, they R not alone, especially in RED (I live in Oklahoma) states! There R more defending democracy than R trying 2 destroy it. #OneIfByLand2025 #NoKingEver
If someone used lethal force in this kind of instance, I'm sure they could claim self-defense.... if they were alive for their court day.
Someone comes at me with a weapon and doesn't identify themselves, they're getting a couple rounds to the chest.
George ~ it breaks my heart that you, your family, and so many other #JapaneseAmericans experienced this trauma and injustice. It was wrong then, it's wrong now, and is so wrong it should never happen again.
#ICE is doing it and worse right now. Their draconian sadistic "operation" must be stopped.
Remember Putrid's goal: Destroy America. 47 is so self-centered and demented--so blinded by his greed--that he doesn't realize that every single time he follows Putrid's suggestion for consolidating power, he is also weakening USA--AND--weakening his own power position vis a vis Vlademort Putrid.
Keep reminding people of this George. Too many in the US don’t know or even believe that such things have happened in the US. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people] to do nothing.” Let’s continue to believe the US has enough good people.
This reminds me of during the pandemic, when a bunch of white sketchy dudes just started wearing mask and reflective vest and people assume they are delivery driver , meanwhile they are doing shady shit
They also detained Germans - my husband’s greatgrandfather worked in airplane factory in NY. He was then detained with other “kraut” workers during the war in case they were spies. They were held and not charged and released after the war. It surprised me, but unlike Japanese not the whole family.
I’m terribly sorry for what you went through George. I’ve heard you speak about it on the Howard Stern show and it sounded horrendous. I pray that this never happens again in America
They also stole thousands of acres of farmland…our government rounded people up, stole their property & possessions & left them rotting in concentration camps…they want to do the same again…so these US ICE nazis are as bad as previous nazis…we should never forget that…
This is not the USAs first rodeo. We have been committing atrocities since before we were "founded."
This country was founded on killing the native people, forcing them into camps, slavery of different peoples, separation of rights, rounding other people up, and religion that we claimed to separate
George, I can't imagine what you, your family, and many other Americans suffered. Thank you for speaking out and sharing our country's unfortunate truth. You make the world a much better place! ❤️
THIS IS WHAT FASCISM LOOKS LIKE! WAKE UP AMERICA! WAKE UP CONGRESS! ALL WE NEED ARE 76 REPUBLICANS IN THE HOUSE AND 20 REPUBLICANS IN THE SENATE 2 JOIN WITH THE DEMOCRATS TO IMPEACH & REMOVE TRUMP NOW, "WITH ALL DELIBERATE SPEED!" TRUMP IS A FASCIST!
That’s right … it has happened before and the minimal guardrails
that were in place to prevent
shit like that from ever happening
again have been summarily dismantled or illegally ignored
by this administration.
We are no longer a country that
respects the rule of law.
George, it's incredibly mind blowing and sad that you are seeing this happen again. When I first learned about what happened to you when I was in grade school (history teacher was a fan of yours) I couldn't even wrap my little brain around it happening. It's heartbreaking that it has come to this.
And it appears we are still fighting the wrong people. Guess we didn't learn from history. We are not at war... Trump is at war with those stealth planes and other demons in his head.
and they've been frankly open about destroying education for literally DECADES, they haven't bothered to hide it, they haven't bothered to deny it - did people think that wouldn't result in, yk, an uneducated easily led populace??
It’s even worse this time, because it’s totally unprovoked. There was no Pearl Harbour to make people this paranoid. They just want to be cruel. It’s pure evil.
MAGA, this IS the government tyranny you get so mad about. Just because you like how it's being used today, doesn't mean you'll like where it's aimed tomorrow.
Classic fascist. Build up the secret police to go after "them".
Once the regime turns it on you and yours, it's too late to resist.
This is exactly why we need to teach ACTUAL history to our kids. One of my favorite subjects in school. We humans keep doing the same shit, over and over again. Love your neighbor, azzhole! 🧐
We can’t let this be quietly forgotten, as that part of our history has been by many. I didn’t know anything about the history of the Japanese Americans until I read a work of historical fiction that referenced it. There must be an accounting. Those participating must be held responsible.
@georgetakei.bsky.social: George, did you sign the book for Camp survivors that is making the rounds? My mother-in-law did. She’s now in northern CA. Born in Los Angeles,she was sent to Rohwer via Santa Ana racetrack in 1942. She’s almost 94; most of her friends & family have passed.
Turn the tables. Tow ICE vehicles. Citizens arrest for assault, kidnapping, battery and human trafficking, civil rights abuses, warrantless (no judge signed) warrants. Turn the tables and arrest them.
We also have a second amendment that was designed to be used by us to protect against a tyrannical government. More people need to start exercising that right
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America no longer the free.
once they get the routine down pat
it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what they are going to do next after they run out of migrants in 150 weeks
Given the opportunity, we would just do what our society and countless others have done in history.
Our traumas will never equate, but please know that my kind, caring and loving heart would have fought back for you to my death.
My worst traumas in life happened at PH, HI.
❤️
https://www.nationalfinancialplan.com
Frankly... im sorry George. I ask my fellow independents and liberals to arm up and learn the rights gun laws.
Not even a year in.
From Art Spiegelman’s “Maus”
Never forget how cruel this country has been and still can be.
🇺🇲Dear Congressperson, my ask of you:
1. Object to unanimous consent in the Senate.
2. Never vote in favor of Republican legislation.
3. Blue slip every judicial nominee.
4. Vote out Schumer.
🇺🇲Use these like the superpowers they are.
https://youtu.be/HleXLd-2VDA?feature=shared
There is no such pretext for what the US government is currently doing.
funny then, how this did NOT happen to Germans & Italians (aka white people) #WWII #Japanese = #YellowMenace VS #Nazi #German #fascist #Italian
The two situations are not comparable.
vs.
11,000 (white) Germans …
He had jumped ship in New York from Germany
In my worst nightmares, I never thought we would be here again.
They said they were going after criminals. I know that there are some
Many of the people being kidnapped are already in the immigration process. They are hard workers and came into the country at the border and started their immigration process at the border.
SS Gestapo & sycophants
But hey, that free trauma though, that shit is intergenerational. That's the real quality stuff. I don't want to brag, but I have 3 generations worth.
Also, for those wondering about the glorious consolation prize of our very own reservations, my current view:
I'm in the ritzy section.
As well their actions today.
Had Hi***r done what he did 90 years earlier then America might have helped him.
Someone comes at me with a weapon and doesn't identify themselves, they're getting a couple rounds to the chest.
US slipped into ethnic cleansing so smoothly, you know it’s always been who we are.
#ICE is doing it and worse right now. Their draconian sadistic "operation" must be stopped.
Forever a racist stain on our American history.
My family was robbed by Japanese occupation
I’m still angry but this thread is not the place for it
I get you
Now back to the subject: us atrocities against its own citizens
This country was founded on killing the native people, forcing them into camps, slavery of different peoples, separation of rights, rounding other people up, and religion that we claimed to separate
that were in place to prevent
shit like that from ever happening
again have been summarily dismantled or illegally ignored
by this administration.
We are no longer a country that
respects the rule of law.
GOP has seen to it.
And Brad, too - OF COURSE.
Long live the REAL United States.
With love. MUCH! ❤️❤️❤️❤️
Betsy
The mindset back then was ultra redneck tho. Kinda is now as well.
They are building the foundation for it to happen again. Time to rise up! Protect our neighbors/communities. We are all one. 💙
We.
Never.
Learn.
These threads are almost uniformly rich and right wing.
Classic fascist. Build up the secret police to go after "them".
Once the regime turns it on you and yours, it's too late to resist.
Thank you for talking about what happened so we won’t forget.
It’s beyond terrifying that the same thing is happening again.
@gregolear.bsky.social