Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast - George Takei

Episode Date: December 27, 2023

Michele is joined by author, civil rights activist, and famed Star Trek actor George Takei. George’s story of his mother’s kitchen is far different than our other guests—he didn’t have one growing up. He shares his harrowing experiences living in an internment camp as a child, how he adjusted to life after, and what led to becoming Sulu. He’ll also share two foods that gave him solace throughout his life: his mother’s East LA-influenced tacos and her “footballs,” or Iniri.George Takei is a social media superstar, Grammy-nominated recording artist, New York Times bestselling author, and pioneering actor whose career has spanned six decades. He has appeared in more than 40 feature films and hundreds of television roles, and he has used his success as a platform to fight for social justice, LGBTQ+ rights, and marriage equality. Find the episode transcript here: https://www.audible.com/ymk/episode18 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I have fond memories of my mother's cooking after we were released and our next home was in the Mexican-American body. And everybody was Mexican. We were the only Japanese family, much less Asian family in our neighborhood of East L.A. My mother made friends with Mrs. Gonzalez, our neighbor, and they lived in each other's kitchens, and she learned how to cook Mexican. It was great. The best tacos and enchiladas were made by Mrs. Cache in East LA. Welcome to your Mama's Kitchen, the podcast that explores how we're shaped as adults by the kitchens we grew up in as kids. I'm Michele Norris. On this episode I'm talking to

actor, author, and activist George Takeda, and this is going to be a very special conversation. George is probably best known for playing Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu in Star Trek, a brave man who always kept his cool when things got a little hairy, or the starship enterprise was exploring the final frontier. In real life, George has also explored several frontiers as a beloved actor, celebrated across the globe as an activist who consistently speaks out about human rights and civil rights as a vocal and effective advocate for LGBTQ plus rights and as an elder statesman that uses

his youthful energy to get young people involved in politics. When you get to know George, it's easy to see why his whole life has been shaped by politics. Laughter comes easy for him. He's got a playful, almost mercurial sense of humor, and you'll hear that in this conversation. But that stands in stark contrast to a very painful family history. George's to-case family members were among the more than 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry that were rounded up and shipped away against their will to relocation camps after the Japanese military's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Those families had to leave behind businesses, farms, homes, and most of their belongings.

This can be hard listening, but I'm grateful to George for reaching back and sharing these stories with us. This is a conversation about loss, but also about strength and resilience, and how food and family were at the center of all of that. In this episode, George decayed on overcoming a painful past, finding early acceptance among the Latino community and East LA, gaining stardom through Star Trek, and the food that the Latino community in East LA, gaining

stardom through Star Trek, and the food that has sustained him throughout his life, including a dish called Japanese footballs. Trust me, they sound delicious. Um, George, decay, thank you so much for being with us. I was really looking forward to this conversation. Well, we waited a long time for this. So I'm so glad to get there. We're going to make sure that it's worth it.

And so very glad that you are with us. This is a podcast that explores how the things that we saw, and heard, and experience, and felt in our kitchens. And so as you think about the kitchens of your youth, because your family moved around a lot, what are the sights and the smells and the sounds that you think about when you close your eyes and think about your mama's kitchen. Well, I had a very unusual American child. I grew up behind American barbed wire fences with century towers and

arm soldiers in them. And in the second camp we went to, in addition to the arm soldiers, we had machine guns pointed down at us. Pearl Harbor was bombed, and overnight we were looked at with suspicion. We're Americans. My mother was born in Sacramento, California. My father was a San Franciscan. We three kids were born in Los Angeles, but we look exactly like the people that bombed Pearl Harbor. But we lived in the United States. 125,000 of us were living on the West Coast. And this country went crazy. Racism and war hysteria is a venomous combination. They looked at us with suspicion and fear and outright hatred when we had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor.

My parents were spat at, yelled at, and assaulted on the street. My father's car was painted and read with three letters, J-A-P, on it. Some of our Japanese American friends had rocks thrown through their windows. And even the great president of the United States got swept up in. He signed Executive Order 9066, which ordered all Japanese Americans on the West Coast from the Mexican border to the Canadian border to be summarily rounded up with no charge, no trial, no due process. And I still remember, I was a five-year-old child, but I remember that morning in May, when our father came into the bedroom I shared with

my brother Henry. He dressed us hurriedly and told us to wait in the living room while he and our mother did some last minute packing. We had a baby sister. She was an infant and a crib in our parents bedroom. And so Henry and I were dressed and we went to the living room standing by the front window just gazing out at the neighborhood. And suddenly we saw two soldiers, American soldiers marching up our driveway. They carried rifles with shiny bayonets on them. They stomped up the front porch and with their fists began banging on the front door. Henry and I were petrified.

My father came out of my parents' bedroom, answered the door. And one of the soldiers pointed is bayonet hat, our father. The other soldier said, get your family out of this house. Our home, my father gave Henry and me boxes about this size, tied in twine, They had prepared that. And he had to have he suitcases. And we followed him out onto the driveway. And we waited for our mother to come out. And when my mother came out escorted by the other soldier,

she had our baby sister in one arm and a huge duffel bag in the other, and tears were streaming down her cheeks. That morning is seared into my memory. I'm 86 years old, but I still remember that morning in May of 1942. For the next four years, my mother didn't have a kitchen. We all ate in a mess hall. We were first taken to the...

Santa Anita racetrack. But we were taken to the bus caravan about four buses and were unloaded, heard it over to the Stabil area and each family was assigned a horse stall to sleep in. On the ground, insects were skittering about. The stench of horse manure was still fresh. Flies were buzzing in the air, and I remember my mother mumbling, so degrading, so degrading. And we lined up in mile long lines for slop that they fed us. We were there for about four months,

and then they announced that we're going to be traveling again. But this time by train, we'd never ridden out of train before. But so we were excited, but all the Gromenups were so solemn. And some of the ladies were sweeping. It was a journey of three days and two nights through the southwestern desert. And finally, on the third morning, we started seeing vegetation. And as we went further, more vegetation, and then lush vegetation. There were these huge, great trees rising up out of black water. My father told us it was the swamps. Those are swamp trees. And then the train started to slow down. And before too much longer, we saw Barbaro Arifenses beside the train window.

They built the prison camp, right parallel to the railroad track. And then we started seeing hordes, masses of Japanese people just standing there looking at the back of the house. And beyond the people, I saw rows and rows and rows of black tarpey barbaric. One unit in one of those black tarpe paper barracks was to be our home. This was a place a camp called Camp Roar, our role H-W-E-R Roar. There was two barracks that were mashed together and that's what we had our meals. And I remember my mother saying,

I love cooking for my children. That was after the war. She said the most painful part was not having a kitchen to cook for my family. After we were released and I was in my early teens, I was very curious about the intern. And I asked my father about after dinner, I peppered him with questions. And he said, well, one of our first meals was beef brain. And I said, what? He said, we didn't know what it was either. It was this brown stuff. That was what they fed us. So my childhood mother's kitchen didn't exist.

May I ask a question about when you left your home, when you were taken from your home, you and your brother each had a box. Your father had two suitcases. You described that your mother had your baby sister in one arm and a big duffel bag in the other. And most of us can't imagine. You're told you have to pack everything up and you might not be able to come back.

What do you put inside that bag to try to create a life in a place that you don't even know about? You don't even know where you're going. What did your mother and she only had one arm because she had to carry that baby, that baby was so young? What did she put in she only had one arm because she had carry that baby that baby was so young What did she put in that duffel bag To help prepare you for a journey that she couldn't even comprehend her duffel bag was very heavy

My mother was a stout lady and she could have that heavy duffel bag and On the train trip trip to Arkansas, for Henry and me, as kids, my baby sister was just an infant, that was a magical duffel bag because whenever we got little whiny or antsy, she would dig in there and find a cracker jack box or an animal cracker or a couple of lollipops. And so that was a wonderful gift-loaded duffel bag. But she had something else there that we didn't know about. My father didn't know was she had either, she kept my father's a tried to help her

and she said no, I will carry. She had bundles of baby blankets, a ratter on something heavy and she pulled it out and unwrapped it and lo and behold, it was her new portable sewing machine. That was contraband. Any mechanical thing with sharp points or sharp edges was verboten. And she knew it, and she marched past all those armed MPs with that heavy bag. And when my father saw that, he was a gas. He was shot. He didn't know what to think. And she said, children will be needing clothes. She was thinking of the future. clothes. She was thinking of the future. Little children grow fast. They grow out of the closet. And so that's why she brought that's portable sewing machine. And it was new. So my mother doesn't like to waste things. She doesn't even food. She brought back from

the mess hall so that we could have it for a snack later on. Church to care, I want to ask you about what life was like when you were finally allowed to leave those camps. And you went back to Southern California. Was there any kind of reentry program? entry program. Was there any kind of apology? Was there any kind of effort to help a family like yours get back on their feet? We were all impoverished shortly after Pearl Harbor. They froze our bank accounts. They destroyed my father's business. We couldn't pay the mortgage on our house so we didn't pay it. Everything was taken from us and we were in prison. The gates were all thrown open. The government gave us each, every one of us, 125,000 of us, every one of us, 125,000 of us, a one-way ticket to anywhere in the United States, plus

$25 to start life anew from nothing, $25. And the hatred was still intense. The war may be over, but the attitudes and the discrimination was intense. Jobs were near impossible. Housing was impossible. Our first home was on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles. It was a horrific homecoming. In Skid Row, where the stench of human excrement everywhere, on the sidewalk, in the hallways of the floppahouse where that became our home. So from that, my parents worked long, hard, killing hours, working to fingers to the bones. My father's first job was as a dishwasher in a Chinatown restaurant, only other Asians would hire us. So it took them four years of

scrimting and saving and getting a little savings put together. And they had the down payment on a three bedroom, two bathroom home and the our old wheelchair district. As your family moved and started to establish themselves and got their financial footing, and we were able to interfaith, I guess, re-entry. How did your mother take that space, the kitchen, and try to use that as a place that provided

not just nourishment but also stability for her family? Well, it was... I have fond memories of my mother's cooking after we were released and we moved to an on skid row flop-pops They did not have a kitchen, but our next home was in the Mexican-American body and Everybody was Mexican. We were the only Japanese family much less Asian family in our neighborhood of East L.A. and a socialist Asian family in our neighborhood of East LA.

And my mother made friends with Mrs. Gonzalez, our neighbor. And they lived in each other's kitchens. And she learned how to cook Mexican. And Henry and I thought it was great. And Henry and I thought it was great. The best tacos and enchiladas were made by Mrs. Decay in East LA. Henry and I had taco eating contest, get my mother in the kitchen. And because we were so enthusiastic about eating her tacos. We started gaining weight. And my mother, especially because there was such a privation, she got things that were

too rich for us to eat and we got fat. Walking home with my friend Onorato, he would invite me over to visit his mother's kitchen. And I still remember the rich aroma of fresh corn tortilla, just freshly made. You walked into the back door and that was where Onorato's mother's kitchen was and the whole room was filled with that wonderful aroma. And she would take the fresh tortilla and spread some fridolus that's been on it and rolled it up. And we had that as after school snack. And sometimes I got Honorato to come,

we lived a little further away. Honorato to come, rather than my stopping at his mother's kitchen, and my mother fixed her special with after school treat for us. And she wanted something very American. We had white wonder bread. And she gave honorato and me white bread with white sugar on it. It's a sugar sandwich.

It was so good and so bad for us. LAUGHTER We're on a podcast, so people can't see you, but I wish they could because when you're describing this kitchen, the joy is apparent. You know, as you're actually, you're almost pantomime what she's cooking. You know, I see you're doing the motions and the wide smile on your face. Kitchens can do that for us.

They can provide a memory that is just so vivid that you feel it in your mind, but you really almost feel it in your gut, in your soul and away also. Well, it was much better than the food for the best all. But, you know, I wasn't introduced to Japanese food when we came out of camp because we were living in East LA and our budget was very, very limited. And it wasn't until after I was about ten years old that they introduced me to sushi and At fresh slice of tuna, red, almost like beef, anya, bite into it, and you feel the raw meat in your mouth, and that vinegar rice, it was so delicious. And this is Japanese food, but because I spent my formative years, I couldn't use the

chopstick. I never learned how to use chopstick until I was 10 and my parents started to take us downtown to Little Tokyo and Sushi and sashimi and all the other wonderful dishes. And so I am a terrible Japanese American who unable to use, I am worse myself in Japanese restaurants. Oh, you still can't use chopsticks. And I still can't, it just flips over. Oh. Some of my Caucasian friends can use it well.

Ha ha. Can use it well. so it's an audible two weeks before you can hear them anywhere else. What made you decide to start acting? How did that transition happen in your life? Was that something that started when you were a student in high school or did it happen much later. My mother said when I was born and she heard my y'all, she had the sense that any child with that kind of strong voice has got to have a little theater in them. And sure enough, I was a show off kitty. My parents would have guests at home. This is before the war. And so I'd come bouncing out and say, I learned twinkle twinkle little star today. Would you like me to do it for you?

And I would perform for them. And in imprisonment itself too, every other, after dinner, the messol would be cleared away, the benches would be lined up, and they showed movies, old Hollywood movies, in the messol, and Henry and I were just transported by the movies. I really remember Charles Lotton in the hunchback of Notre Dame. He was such a nice but poor man and he suffered so much and my father said he walks straight, he's a regular human being, he's an actor. And I thought he must be a fantastic actor. And I also remember Snow White, in color, all the other movies we saw were black and white, and Snow White in color and with all that music. I hope I hope the

dwarf singing that was transporting and occasionally they showed old Japanese samurai movies but they apparently lost the soundtrack for it because it always came with this man who sat below the screen and to the side a bit and had a little lamb and he had a script. And he did all the dialogue of all the characters and he had a young man there to help him did all the dialogue of all the characters. And he had a young man there to help him with all the sword fights, sounds. And he did the voices for all the other actors, the samurai, the Shogun, the princess.

One man, the Shogun would go, Sishanudu Danino, Darino,1名、ショグンは行って、スシャナルルだね、 だねに思いが行って、 そして、 寒いと言って、 寒いと言って、 寒いと言って、 寒いと言って、

1名、 寒いと言って、 寒いと言って、 寒いと言って、 voices. The princess, the shogun, the samurai, absolutely fascinating. One man, and my father said, that's an actor. And sure enough, when we were released from camp, my father bought a portable radio. While we were still living in unskid Row, and suddenly the world opened up. I Green Hornet, B-Bar B in the Bobby Benson and the Riders of the Range. It was the movies that helped me escape the Barbar War fence vicariously, and on Skid Row, I went to New York and saw the green hornet roaring through Manhattan

and cowboy stories of the American West. All thanks to the radio. Yes, and I heard Gene Altria, I think it was, who sang, Don't fence me in. And a populous song, like the way we thought when we were fenced in. Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above. Don't fence me in. Let me ride through the wide open country that I love. Don't fence me in. This box, a called radio, was wonderful. And this is what freedom means. Music, music, entertainment, and movies were staged for radio, Lux Radio Theatre. I still remember the music that came on.

This is William Keely with Lux Radio Theatre. Da da da da da da da da da da da. I mean, it was a wonderful magic box set It's and just sound and voice, the human voice provided me with all that escape. As you grew as an actor and started taking on more and more roles, you know, many of us, no love will forever remember you as who. When you auditioned for that role, did you understand that playing that particular role on that particular show would forever define your life and particularly your life as an actor? I didn't quite think that way, but I thought it was a great wonderful opportunity for first of all for me personally.

It was a pilot film for a series, which means that it sold its regular employment, but also, Jean Rodenberry, the creative star track, explained to me something about his philosophy for the show. He said, the 1960s is turbulent with a voice of Dr. Martin Luther King, Viet Namur with the peace movement as well as those that fiercely supported the war, and he wanted to be able to reflect some of that, but how to do it because TV is an advertising medium and he said he found a way to do it. He was going to use metaphor and put the metaphor in the future, 300 years in the future. Astronauts soaring through space in a spaceship, ground and circular,

like this blue planet that we inhabit. And the strength of this blue planet is its diversity. Coming together, respecting each other, in fact, taking joy and pride in each other other. In fact, taking joy and pride in each other and finding that diversity, engaging, interesting, as well as our strength. And here's this planet with these people here in North America. And he said, the North American is going to be the captain, and he didn't cast an American. He cast a Canadian as a captain. Here's Europe, and the Scots are famous for seafaring.

And so the engineer was a Scotsman. And here's Africa. And that's a lot of people without great history. And here's this vast area called Asia. But he had a problem with depicting the Asian, because Asia is many countries, many languages, many cultures, and mid-twentieth century Asia was turbulent with warfare, colonization, rebellion, and he didn't want to just taking sides because every Asian surname is nationally specific. Tanaka is Japanese, Wongist Chinese, Kim is Korean, and if he

chose any of those names, he's taking sides. He wanted to find a name that suggested all of Asia, its diversity, and he had a map of Asia pinned on his office wall and he was staring at it. And he found off the coast of the Philippines a sea called the Sulus Sea. And he thought the waters of a sea touch all shores. That's what the Asian character will be and all of that diversity coming together Working together in concert for a common goal and contributing This vantage point this expertise

From that culture and this unique interesting point from another And this unique, interesting point from another culture, that's what's going to give this starship, this strength. And boldly go where no one had gone before. And so I got, I loved the idea, and I desperately wanted to get cast in it. And of course, I knew that this character as part of the leadership team, I would be representing people that look like this. And I went to my agent and said,

whatever it takes, get me the thrill. And it came to be. And Star Trek went on and on. Next generation. It's still going on. And New Shows, New Spin Huffs, still going on. 57 years.

Isn't that something? That's something. That's something. And you are much beloved. Much beloved. The more I have there is any special things that your family did to celebrate the holidays. Did they celebrate Christmas? Were there any other holidays that they celebrated because the kitchen is off in a center of

activity during those special times? Christmas is a special holiday, but the Japanese celebrate New Year's because that is a Japanese big winter holiday. And for that, the traditional thing is we visit each other's homes and we also eat at our relative zones. And my mother would start cooking Japanese food this time from a week before New Year's. And on New Year's morning, the dining room table

will be covered with various dishes, exotic dishes, some delicious, others a little bit more. Exotic and demand. That's very diplomatic word. And our uncle and his family would come and eat, mostly eat and talk and the kids would play. So when you were a kid and you described some of the things were delicious and somewhere, as you said, exotic. What would follow in the delicious category and what was considered exotic and maybe not exactly delicious but interesting.

I love sushi and especially my mother's sushi because they weren't all the restaurant kind of sushi. Some were she would take a cube of tofu, fry it, and carve out the inside so that she would have a tofu skin shell. And stuff that with her special rice concoction, vinegar rice, but with a little bits of carrots. And we would call them footballs because they look like footballs brown. The Japanese word is Inari, her Inari sushi. I love that. What I considered Oh, it was what she called go bowl. It's a gray root that's cut into a string-like shape and it's fried and just tastes like woodsy. Well, you dip it in soy sauce and that's the favorite.

And then the knowing, knowing, knowing. Well, it's probably good for you, probably as some sort of, you know, up your vitamin intake, you know, build your resistance. It's supposed to have a lot of vitamins. She would say it's good for you. And she cut it long because the length suggests longevity. Okay. And that's why you had the beginning of the year.

Yes. And I'm 86 years old now, and because a lot of knowing on gray roots fried dipped in soy sauce. Well, I wish you love laughter and longevity. Thank you very much. I have enjoyed talking to you. Thank you for much. I have enjoyed talking to you. Thank you for sharing your stories. Thank you so much for all that you do to lift up America and Americans,

particularly those whose voices are not always heard. And I am so tempted to say, I'm just tempted to say Mr. Decay, take us out. I am. Live long and prosper. Live long and prosper. Much love to you. Thank you so much. Thank you. I enjoy the conversation.

Man, I really loved this conversation. I cannot wait to try my hand of those delicious little Japanese footballs in my own kitchen. This is a story that will stay with me for a long time. I am so deeply impressed by George's warmth and his humor and his resilience in the face of everything that he's experienced. And that Gabo Rudy mentioned, I hope it's on the menu as he celebrates every new year because we would be lucky indeed to get a lot more years of stories and humor

and wisdom from George to Kay. If you want to try his family recipes in your kitchen too, check out my Instagram page at Michelle underscore underscore Norris. That's two underscores. Thanks for joining us. Make sure and come back to hear all of our episodes. Make sure and subscribe and let us know what you think we love hearing from you. Take good care. This has been a higher ground and audible original produced by higher ground studios. Senior producer Natalie Rinn, producer Sonia Tan, and associate producer Angel Carreras.

Sound design and engineering from Andrew Epen and Roy Baum. Higher ground audios editorial assistants are Jenna Levin and Camilla Thertacous. Executive producers for higher ground are Nick White, Mukde-Mohan, Dan Fehrman, and me, Michelle Norris. Executive producers for Audible are Nick DiAngelo and Ann Hepperman. The show's closing song is 504 by The Soul Rebels. A tutorial and web support from Melissa Bear and say what media our talent booker is Angela Paluso.

And special thanks this week to Threshold Studios. Chief content officer for Audible is Rachel Giazza. And that's it. Goodbye, everybody. Higher Ground