Trailblazing actor and activist George Takei forever changed the perception of Asian Americans in U.S. media when he took on the role of Starfleet officer Hikaru Sulu in Star Trek. But he told Cheddar News that the increased racism and harassment toward Asian Americans in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic reminds him of his youth -- when Japanese Americans were incarcerated in internment camps after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. 

Cheddar's News Wrap

George Takei Talks About His Youth, Asian American Progress

in 1965. Actor and activist George Takei forever changed the public perception of asian americans in media when he portrayed Starfleet officer Hikaru Sulu in Star Trek. Fast forward to today. The 85 year old. It's taking on a new role as the inaugural grand marshal of the Japan parade. That will take place next saturday right here in new york city. Mind you some market calendars earlier today I got to talk to Takei who says he hopes to shed a positive light on asian americans again in this new role. Take a listen after a two year, 2.5 year interregnum of quarantine. It is wonderful to be able to come out on a saturday afternoon and enjoy a parade and combining my japanese heritage with my american heritage and Japan and the United States coming together in unison, sharing the taste and the flavors and the martial arts and more contemporary uh anim and manga cartoon characters both on floats and marching. So it's gonna be a fun saturday afternoon that ends with a street there and everybody loves a street fair. So it's going to be a wonderful Japanese american festival day. Now George since the start of the pandemic, we keep hearing about the rise in violence against asian americans. So how concerned are you about this and how can this parade help bridge differences. Well, this um, asian hate that we experienced today is an echo, a terrifying echo of my childhood when right after Pearl Harbor's bombing, the President of the United States signed an executive order ordering all Japanese americans under the west coast, not just asians but focused targeting japanese americans american. I'm third generation. My my parents were americans. My grandparents were the immigrant generation. We were all ordered by the President of the United States to be rounded up Summarily rounded up with no charge, no trial, no due process and imprisoned in 10 barbed wire prison camps simply because we have to look like this. Like the people that bombed Pearl Harbor. It was one of the most unjust acts of the President of the United States in the history of this country. We were in person for the duration of the war subjected to all kinds of cruel, unjust, outrageous. My after a year of imprisonment the government decided we want to, we were there's a wartime manpower shortage and here are all these people that could have been in the services, the military services and so they changed their mind, they decided to draft us. But how do they justify drafting enemy aliens as they can categorize us out of a barbed wire prison camp for service in the U. S. Military. Could you tell us how that experience transformed you? I was a five year old child and I remember the confusion and the terror at times uh having neighbors and are the same barrack dragged out in the middle of the night, their wives or their mothers and their Children wailing saying don't take him, he's innocent and being taken away. And then there were the riots of course in opposition to the injustice of it at all. So I remember the scariness of the imprisonment, but I didn't understand it because I was five years. I just turned five years old when the soldiers came to our home and banged on the front door with their fists and ordered us out of our homes at bayonet point. So I remember it as scary. But when I became a teenager, the war was over. We were released. We are, but the, the United States was not welcoming. My parents returned back to Los Angeles, but it was a hostile Los Angeles jobs were difficult, housing was possible. Our first home was on skid row in downtown Los Angeles. My father's first job was as a dishwasher in a chinatown restaurant, only other asians would hire us now. We're going through the same sort of thing uh, targeting all asians, not just japanese americans and not just american citizens, but the immigrant generation as well. I'm sure you've heard of this elderly tide gentleman walking down the sidewalk in Oakland California and this young man came running down the street with all that momentum behind him and smacked him down on the sidewalk gave him a concussion and he died. So What we have now is a repetition of what we experience what I, what I experienced as a child. So we've got come 80 years from that and it's important that we learned the lesson from that and also at the same time celebrate how we are strong allies. Yeah I want to talk about that is the strongest ally for the United States in ASia. Exactly. And I want to talk about those achievements with you because as you know it's asian american and pacific islander heritage month and I want to talk about the many achievements that asian americans are making. So I was wondering if just curious what are some achievements since then And now that stands out most to you now we have asian americans in the halls of congress as elected representatives. We have four in the hospital representatives. We have to in the U. S. Senate. And so we've made amazing advances. We have asian americans now who are college presidents, We have scientists, great scientists who are dealing with our present pandemic, the quarantine that we're just now emerging from. So amazing progress has been made. But we've had another president who kept referring to this uh covid 19 disease virus as the china flu. Wuhan flu. Uh kung flu. And there are hysterical, no no nothing's that picked up picked up on that and are now perpetuating the kind of terror that my parents faced 80 years ago. So we've got to learn the lessons and a special thanks to George decay actor activist, a grand marshal, the inaugural Japan parade which kicks off of course here in new york city on May 14th