Time - USA (2019-08-26)

72 Time August 26, 2019

8 Questions

‘

WE WERE

HERDED OVER

TO THE STABLE

AREA. EACH

FAMILY WAS

ASSIGNED TO A

HORSE STALL

’

the injustice of that incarceration. I

was inspired by speeches of Dr. Martin

Luther King that I heard on the radio

and what I read in the newspapers. I

read about the ideals of our democracy:

all men are created equal. I couldn’t

reconcile that with what I knew to be

my childhood imprisonment and what

my parents went through.

You’re both an actor and consultant

on AMC’s The Terror: Infamy. Why

did you get involved? My mission in

life has been to raise awareness of this

chapter in American history. I’m the

last of the surviving generation that

experienced internment.

The series, set during World War II,

centers on a series of bizarre

deaths that haunt a Japanese-

American community. Why tell

this story through a horror movie

with supernatural elements? That

is organic to the story. The immigrant

generation brought with them their old

beliefs, superstitions, religious rituals.

When people are terrorized—genuine,

government - sourced terror—older

people cling onto what they found

security in. People went crazy. And

when crazy people do crazy things, the

immigrant generation thought it was

the spirit of whatever evil that was

done coming to punish them.

We rarely see the story of

internment being told in a major

U.S. TV show. Why do you think

that is? It’s a shameful chapter of

American history. The U.S. looks very

bad because it was a horrible mistake.

How much of the show is historically

authentic? I play the oldest of the

immigrants. I went to school in Japan,

so I speak Japanese fluently. But I had

to learn the Wakayama accent, the

old Japanese of the province, to play

the part of my character. That’s how

authentic this is.

—melissa Chan

Y

ou were in Japanese- American

internment camps from ages

5 to 8. What was that like? We

were plunked down in the swamps of

southeastern Arkansas. To me, it was

an exotic, alien planet. Trees grew

out of the water of the bayou that was

right next to the barbed-wire fence.

I remember catching pollywogs and

putting them in the jar. Dragonflies,

which I’ve never seen before. The

first winter, it snowed there. I was a

Southern California kid. To wake up one

morning and see everything covered in

white, it was a magical place.

What was it like for your parents?

For my parents, it was a series of

goading terrors, one after the other.

But children are amazingly adaptable.

We adjusted, and we got used to what

would have been a grotesque thing—

lining up three times a day to eat lousy

food in a noisy mess hall, or going with

my father to bathe in a mass shower.

When I made the night runs to the

latrine, searchlights followed me. I

thought it was nice that they lit the way

for me to pee.

What do you remember about the

journey there?

I remember the terror of when the

soldiers came to our Los Angeles

home to order us out, and the

confusion and chaos at the Santa

Anita racetrack. There was a chain-

link fence around the whole

racetrack facility. We were unloaded

and herded over to the stable area.

Each family was assigned to a

horse stall. For my parents, it was

a degrading, humiliating, enraging

experience to take their three kids

to sleep in a smelly horse stall.

But to me, it was fun to sleep

where the horsies sleep.

When did you understand what

you were part of? It wasn’t until I

was a teenager that I learned about

the reality, the horror, the terror and

George Takei The actor talks about his

new show, The Terror: Infamy, and his real-life

experiences in an internment camp

JESSE GRANT—GETTY IMAGES FOR AMC