One Book, One Coast
Join us for the largest book club on the West Coast! One Book, One Coast brings together library systems across California, Washington State, and Oregon for a shared community reading program that celebrates literacy, learning, community, and civil discourse. For our inaugural year, we will be reading They Called Us Enemy by George Takei. The Camas Public Library will have physical and ebook copies for checkout, as well as copies for those participating in our adult and teen book clubs.
On Sunday, May 31, George Takei will sit down for an interview with LA County Library Director Dr. Skye Patrick and Cathy De Leon, Director of Long Beach Public Library. Camas Library patrons will be able to livestream this interview from home.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
George Takei has captured hearts and minds worldwide with his magnetic performances, sharp wit, and outspoken commitment to equal rights. But long before he braved new frontiers in Star Trek, he woke up as a four-year-old boy to find his own birth country at war with his father’s — and their entire family forced from their home into an uncertain future.
In 1942, at the order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, every person of Japanese descent on the west coast was rounded up and shipped to one of ten “relocation centers,” hundreds or thousands of miles from home, where they would be held for years under armed guard.
They Called Us Enemy is Takei’s firsthand account of those years behind barbed wire, the terrors and small joys of childhood in the shadow of legalized racism, his mother’s hard choices, his father’s tested faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future.
What does it mean to be American? Who gets to decide? When the world is against you, what can one person do? To answer these questions, George Takei joins cowriters Justin Eisinger & Steven Scott and artist Harmony Becker for the journey of a lifetime.
IMPORTANT DATES
Tuesday, May 19 at 4:30 p.m. - Teen Book Club
Tuesday, May 26 at 1:30 p.m. - Adult Book Club
Sunday, May 31 at 2 p.m. - Virtual Author Talk with George Takei
Thursday, June 4 at 4:30 p.m. - Teen Book Club
Monday, June 8 at 6:30 p.m. - Adult Book Club
