We were American citizens. We were incarcerated by our American

The words of George Takei — “We were American citizens. We were incarcerated by our American government in American internment camps here in the United States. The term ‘Japanese internment camp’ is both grammatically and factually incorrect.” — cut deep into the heart of a nation’s conscience. They are not spoken in bitterness, but in remembrance — a remembrance that demands honesty, not comfort. In this declaration, Takei, an actor, activist, and survivor of the wartime camps, gives voice to a truth that history too often softens: that the injustice of internment was not a foreign act but an American betrayal, done not by enemies abroad, but by hands within the republic itself. His words remind us that to misname injustice is to repeat it — and that truth must be called by its rightful name, no matter how it shames us.

The origin of Takei’s words lies in one of the darkest chapters of American history. In 1942, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, fear and suspicion swept across the United States. The government, moved more by panic than proof, ordered over 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry — two-thirds of whom were citizens — to be removed from their homes and sent to camps behind barbed wire. Families were stripped of property, dignity, and freedom, not for crimes committed, but for their heritage. Children pledged allegiance to a flag that waved over their prison. Men fought for the very nation that called them suspect. And all the while, the government named these places “relocation centers,” as though a gentler word could disguise the cruelty it concealed.

Takei, who was only a child when his family was taken from their Los Angeles home to the camps, later devoted his life to ensuring that America remembered this truth. His correction — that “Japanese internment camp” is both grammatically and factually wrong — is not mere pedantry. It is moral precision. For the people imprisoned were not “Japanese” in allegiance, but Americans in citizenship. And the government that caged them was not foreign, but their own. To call them “Japanese camps” distances the guilt, as if the injustice had come from somewhere else. To call them “American camps” brings the truth home — to the soil of the Constitution, to the heart of the republic, where liberty itself was betrayed.

This insistence on accuracy echoes the wisdom of the ancients, who taught that language shapes memory, and memory shapes justice. When words are softened, history is forgotten. The philosopher Thucydides once warned that tyranny begins not only in deeds, but in the corruption of speech — when injustice is cloaked in euphemism, and oppression is hidden beneath polite names. So too in America’s story: the “relocation centers” of the 1940s were not mere movements of people, but concentration camps by another name — prisons for the innocent, born of prejudice and fear. Takei’s correction forces the nation to strip away illusion and confront the raw truth: that freedom failed its own children.

History is rich with similar lessons. In the Roman Republic, the Senate once exiled entire families on suspicion of treason, calling it a “temporary safeguard.” In France, during the Revolution, noblemen were imprisoned “for the safety of the Republic.” In every age, oppression hides beneath the mask of necessity. Takei’s wisdom reminds us that tyranny often begins with good intentions — when fear persuades free men to trade justice for security. The internment camps were not born of hatred alone, but of cowardice disguised as protection. And thus, the deepest tragedy of this history is not only what was done to the innocent, but what it revealed about a nation’s capacity to forget its own ideals.

Yet Takei’s words also carry hope — for in naming the crime, he restores truth to its rightful place. To remember honestly is to rebuild honor. His life stands as proof that even from the ruins of injustice, dignity can rise again. By speaking, he ensures that those who once suffered in silence will not be erased by time or indifference. The American experiment, he reminds us, is not ruined by its failures, but by its refusal to learn from them. The measure of a free people is not perfection, but repentance — the courage to face their own wrongdoing and choose never to repeat it.

So let this be the teaching: name injustice truly, for silence and soft speech are its allies. When governments fail, let citizens not turn away, but hold them accountable. When fear calls for the sacrifice of liberty in the name of safety, remember those who were imprisoned not for what they did, but for who they were. Speak truth even when it wounds, for truth is the only medicine that can heal a nation’s soul.

And thus, O listener, carry forward this lesson from George Takei — that to love one’s country is not to defend its errors, but to confront them with honesty. For a patriot is not the one who hides his nation’s shame, but the one who exposes it, that it may be purified. The American camps were built by Americans; let them also be remembered by Americans, that such a shadow may never again fall across the land of the free.