Storytelling

George Takei: Why I love a country that once betrayed me

     The argument of this talk is that although our lives may have a predetermined fate, it is up to us to change it. George than discusses the fact that many Japanese Americans felt betrayed by their government because they placed them in internment camps, despite them being citizens. He says that he didn't understand why they were doing this especially because these same citizens were signing up for the draft to put their lives at risk to stand up for a country that saw them as non- alienable enemies. Takei also discussed the fact that because he was so young when his family was in the internment camp, after they got out, he thought of the camp as home. This was mainly because his family struggled to get back on their feet.
     The purpose of Takei's talk is to show how fear can explain the duality of human nature in times of distress. The main way he gets his point across is through his use of anecdotes to allow the audience to feel what he was going through during WWII. Through this Takei hopes to further peoples understandings of internment camps and understand that despite the fact that their own country treated them as if they were enemies. The ethos seen within this talk comes primarily from the fact that George Takei starred in Star Trek as Hikaru Sulu. He is a well credited actor with many achievements and that encourages the audience to perceive what he has to say as important. He also is Japanese American so his view on the internment camps and Pearl Harbor is different from that of other American citizens at that time and uses that to convey his purpose to the audience. The evidence that Takei uses in his speech is very personal for the most part. At the end he discusses the success the 442nd had against the Germans, but the rest of his speech contains a lot of personal experiences that are very valuable to Takei but might not help further the logistics of his argument. This also means that there is a substantial amount of bias in his speech, because this is something that directly effected him. There is a lot of emotion used by Takei to further his purpose. Every personal story that he tells helps the audience connect and better understand what George and his family went through. In this case Takei uses emotion as an effective way to help further his purpose. Any personal experience definitely causes the audience to feel sympathetic for the speaker and Takei uses that to his advantage. When he talks about the day the soldiers came to his house and ordered his family out he says that he mother had his sister in one arm, "a huge duffel bag in the other and tears were streaming down both her cheeks." He then says he will never be able to forget that moment because it has been burned in his memory forever.
     I chose this talk because  I enjoy learning about WWII and really like learning about the ways in which different races were affected by it. This talk also parallels with my extended essays because I look at how African Americans were affected by the war and the struggled they had to endure before during and after the war. I think that this talk also illustrates the recurring theme of duality of human nature and more specifically how we change the way we view certain events or people out of fear. Japanese American citizens were placed in interment camps because the US government acted out of fear. It also covers the theme of known vs. unknown because the US was afraid of what was to come after the attacks so they did what they believed would be best for everyone's protection.