Justin Eisinger is co-author of George Takei’s memoirs
Akron Native is co-author of Star Trek actor George Take’s new graphic novel “It Rhymes with Takei.”
George Takei didn’t come out as a gay until he was 68, but don’t call him his time in the closet.
A more appropriate word “will be imprisoned,” he told USA Today. The Star Trek actor knows what it’s like to be imprisoned. When he was five years old, during World War II, soldiers carrying rifles marched to his house, taking him and his family to Japanese concentration camps. He spent some of his childhood behind barbed wire.
Takei has written several books that include a first-hand account of his time at the camp, “They Called Us Enemies.” In his latest book, “It Rhymes with Takei” (going out of Penguin Random House), the actor gives him his most intimate look as if coming out as a gay person, reflecting on his childhood, adulthood, political activity and acting career.
George Takei presents a story in a new book
“It Rhymes with Takei” is a graphic novel and a deliberate choice to provide accessibility, Takei says. His youth is “a childhood of deprivation,” he says, and radio and newspapers “moves around at the bayonet.”
When his family was released and moved to Skidrow, it was a comic book that opened up his world.
Takei hopes that his graphic memoirs, with bright colors and charming illustrations by Harmony Becker, Justin Ajarter and Stephen Scott, reach audiences, both old and young. He especially hopes it resonates with the younger activists.
The title “It Rhymes with Takei” is a signature callback filmed by a humorous Takei. In 2011 he fought back against the “non-gay” law introduced in Tennessee by lending out his name to rhymes (he pronounces his last name rather than Takuai). “If you’re in the mood for a celebration, you can march at the Takei Pride parade!” Takei said in a 2011 YouTube video.
Takei’s first acting gig was beginning to get straight. He realized that he was different from his heterosexual peers shortly after his family escaped from detention. Today he uses the word “incarcerated.” Because that’s what I felt. When he left behind barbed wire from his childhood, he felt trapped as well. He was associated with men throughout most of his adult life, but did not appear until 2005.
For the years leading up to that he watched his close friends die of AIDS. He saw more and more activists say it. Not open about his sexuality came “with guilt,” Takei says. He was now with her husband Brad Altman for 20 years, but their relationship was largely a secret. He never felt he could become “self,” he wrote in the book.
“Here we protect our work, our careers, our desire to do, but others who had the same differences that I did were sacrificeing it all, actively involved with the bigger society and making progress,” he tells USA Today.
The ultimate catalyst came when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger rejected a bill legalizing gay marriage in California. In 2008, when it became legal, Takei and Altman were the first same-sex couples to apply for a marriage license at West Hollywood.
Now, 20 years after he left, he found George Takei from “The Whole.”
“It feels very liberated,” Takei says. “I don’t need to be vigilant. I want to fence mentally and say what I want to say, but without giving myself. I developed that skill, but I don’t need it now.
George Takei slams anti-LGBTQ laws on Trump in a new book
Among the topics he is incredibly talking about is President Donald Trump, who has vowed to be used by alien enemies to round out certain groups of immigrants. The same law was used to detain Japanese-Americans, like Takei’s family.
“We obviously haven’t learned any lessons from the chapters on American history,” Takei says.
Takei has a long history of activism and public service, from volunteering with the Red Cross as a teenager, working on a Democratic political campaign to serving the Southern California Commission to launch and plan the Los Angeles subway system. He was a member of Hollywood anti-war activist groups, along with Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland. He protested the nuclear test and once ran for the LA City Council. Since he left, he has been an outspoken advocate for LGBTQ+ rights.
In 2013, after he appeared in Trump’s “celebrity apprentice” season, Takei wanted to meet Trump for lunch inside Trump Tower in New York, and advocate for the equal “economic benefits” of marriage to him. He failed. Then in 2015, Trump told Time Magazine that he might have supported coercion. At the time, Takei was appearing in a Broadway musical inspired by his family’s internment experience, “Allegiance.” Takei saved Trump to the audience every night.
“If you want to see how harsh it is from the comfort of your seat, you can get a glimpse of what it was like for my family, who was unfairly imprisoned due to the politics of terror, like the one you are campaigning for,” Trump never showed.
Ten years later, the two Trump administrations fear a state of democracy under what they call the “biggest Klingon,” a reference to “Star Trek’s humanoid alien antagonist. Some things give him hope. In other words, “Republicans are starting to fight between themselves.”
“The change is constant and there’s change,” Takei says. “I’m working to participate in making it a better, more responsible democracy. There’s no better Klingon.”
Clare Mulroy is USA Today’s Books Reporter, covering Buzzy releases, chatting with authors and diving into the culture of reading. Find her On Instagramsubscribe every week Book Newsletter Or tell her what you’re reading cmulroy@usatoday.com.