From ‘Star Trek’ to LGBT Spokesman, What It Takes ‘To Be Takei’
Many fans know George Takei from his role as Mr. Sulu on the 1960s show Star Trek. But in the past decade, he has drawn followers who admire him because of who he is — not just who he has played. Now, the new documentary To Be Takei may interest more people in Takei’s life.
Takei’s personal story offers insights into a couple of key chapters of American political and cultural history.
After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, Takei and his family were among the 127,000 Americans of Japanese descent forced into internment camps. He was 5 years old.
“We were first taken to the horse stables of Santa Anita racetrack because the camps weren’t built yet and we were housed there … narrow, smelly, still was pungent with the smell of horse manure. And we were housed there for about three months while the camps were being built,” Takei tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross. “And then [we were] put on railroad cars with armed guards at both ends of each car and transported two-thirds of the way across the country to the swamps of southeastern Arkansas. There [were] barbed wire fences there — tall sentry towers with machine guns pointed at us.”
More: From ‘Star Trek’ to LGBT Spokesman, What It Takes ‘To Be Takei’ : NPR