Pasadena Library Joins West Coast’s Largest Book Club, Reading George Takei’s Graphic Memoir on Wartime Incarceration

When George Takei was five years old, soldiers with bayoneted rifles pounded on the door of his family’s Los Angeles home and gave his father 10 minutes to pack. It was 1942, and Executive Order 9066 had just made the Takei family — along with more than 120,000 people of Japanese descent, most of them U.S. citizens — prisoners in their own country.

That story is now the center of the West Coast’s largest shared reading program, and the Pasadena Public Library is part of it. The library has joined One Book, One Coast, a new initiative led by LA County Library that connects more than 140 library systems across California, Oregon and Washington around a single title: Takei’s graphic memoir They Called Us Enemy. Throughout May, Pasadena branches will host book discussions, a literary workshop and a graphic memoir activity — all free and open to the public, according to a City of Pasadena press release.

Published in 2019 and co-written with Justin Eisinger and Steven Scott, with illustrations by Harmony Becker, They Called Us Enemy is a New York Times bestselling graphic memoir that recounts Takei’s childhood incarceration during World War II. Exploring themes of resilience, racism and democracy, the book confronts what it means to be American — themes that the press release says resonate with communities throughout the West Coast.

“Pasadena is excited to join this multi-state effort and help create a shared literary experience that crosses city and state borders,” said Tim McDonald, Pasadena Public Library director, in the press release. “By connecting our community to readers up and down the coast, we’re strengthening not only literacy, but also a sense of regional unity.”

The book is available for checkout in the Pasadena Public Library collection and in digital formats through both ComicsPlus and Hoopla, according to the library. On ComicsPlus, it is available in English and Spanish, as well as an expanded edition with 16 pages of bonus material and no checkout limits or holds. On Hoopla, it is available in English, Spanish and an expanded edition, with four checkouts per card per month for three-week loans.

Pasadena’s programming includes a May 16 session at the Lamanda Park Branch Library, 140 S. Altadena Dr., where Susan H. Kamei will provide context for Takei’s firsthand accounts at 3 p.m. According to the press release, Takei’s lifelong commitment to truth-telling and equal rights was forged in his childhood while unjustly imprisoned in World War II American concentration camps. Kamei, award-winning author of When Can We Go Back to America? Voices of Japanese American Incarceration during World War II, is an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California and a descendant of wartime incarcerees who shares lessons about the meaning of being American, according to the event listing. The event is sponsored by the Friends of the Pasadena Public Library.

On May 21 at 3 p.m., the Santa Catalina Branch Library, 999 E. Washington Blvd., will host a graphic memoir workshop where participants can create a one-page visual memoir of their own. Drawing skills are not required, and collage materials will be provided, according to the library.

Three book discussion groups round out the local schedule: the Allendale Book Discussion Group meets May 9 at 10:30 a.m. at the Allendale Branch Library, 1130 S. Marengo Ave.; an online book group meets May 23 at 10:30 a.m. on Zoom, with registration available at CityOfPasadena.net/Library/Calendar; and the Linda Vista Book Discussion Group meets May 30 at 11 a.m. at the Linda Vista Branch Library, 1281 Bryant St.

One Book, One Coast runs through the end of May. The program’s culminating event is a conversation with Takei on Sunday, May 31, from 1 to 4 p.m. at the East Los Angeles Library, 4837 E. 3rd St., Los Angeles. The event, organized by LA County Library, opens at 1 p.m. with book sales, resource partners, art displays, a selfie station and snacks. At 2 p.m., Takei will sit for an author talk with LA County Library Director Dr. Skye Patrick and Long Beach Public Library Director Cathy De Leon, followed by a book signing from 3 to 4 p.m. The conversation will also be livestreamed.

For more information about Pasadena’s One Book, One Coast programs, visit https://bit.ly/PPLOneBookOneCoast.

Eighty-four years after soldiers came to a little boy’s door in Los Angeles, readers in Pasadena and up and down the coast will open the same book — and find his story waiting inside.