They Called Us Enemy: Pages 1–50

by George Takei
In this graphic memoir, actor and activist George Takei recounts the internment of his Japanese-American family during World War II.

Here are links to our list for the memoir: List 1, List 2, List 3, List 4
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. lucrative
    producing a sizeable profit
    He later pursued a lucrative dry cleaning business in Los Angeles' Wilshire Corridor.
  2. segregation
    a social system that provides different facilities for minority groups
    Her father had sent her to Japan to avoid school segregation in Sacramento.
  3. proclamation
    a formal public statement
    That same day, the president signed a proclamation declaring that every adult Japanese citizen inside the U.S. was now an "alien enemy" and must follow strict regulations.
  4. ominous
    threatening or foreshadowing evil or tragic developments
    He said we have no reports of spying, or sabotage, or fifth column activities by Japanese Americans...and that is ominous, because the Japanese are inscrutable.
  5. inscrutable
    difficult or impossible to understand
    He said we have no reports of spying, or sabotage, or fifth column activities by Japanese Americans...and that is ominous, because the Japanese are inscrutable.
  6. prudent
    marked by sound judgment
    You don't know what they're thinking. So it would be prudent to lock them up before they do anything.
  7. saboteur
    someone who deliberately destroys or disrupts something
    The government warned us...Japanese American farmers who didn't maintain their crops until relocation would be treated as wartime saboteurs.
  8. dictate
    determine, order, or control how something is done
    Military necessity dictates such action and requires strictest enforcement.
  9. pungent
    strong and sharp to the sense of taste or smell
    Each family was assigned to a horse stall still pungent with the stink of manure.
  10. degrading
    characterized by dishonor
    It was a degrading, humiliating, painful experience.
  11. sentry
    a person employed to keep watch for some anticipated event
    I thought everyone took vacations on a train with armed sentries at both ends of each car.
  12. incarceration
    the state of being imprisoned
    As a teenager, I had many after-dinner discussions with my father...discussing everything from the government's forced incarceration* of Japanese Americans...to politics.
    *often called internment
  13. internment
    confinement during wartime
    As a teenager, I had many after-dinner discussions with my father...discussing everything from the government's forced incarceration* of Japanese Americans...to politics.
    *often called internment
  14. fallible
    likely to fail or make errors
    People can do great things, George. They can come up with noble, shining ideals. But people are also fallible human beings.
  15. peripheral
    on or near an edge or constituting an outer boundary
    But they are dusty, peripheral remembrances.
Created on Thu Jan 09 10:12:10 EST 2020 (updated Fri Jun 20 17:39:57 EDT 2025)

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