It was really special for me to see George Takei at the American Library Association (ALA) Convention in Philadelphia last week. Not only because I’m a big Star Trek nerd, but also because I love his dedication to various social causes.
Though Takei and his family were American citizens, during WWII (when he was just a boy) his family was rounded up (because they were Japanese) and forced to live in various camps under horrible conditions. In this interview he said that at one point they were living in a horse stable. “We were treated like livestock,” he said.
He spoke about a questionnaire his father and mother had to fill out where some of the questions were traps because they had no good answers. Question 27 asked “Are you willing to serve in the US Military?” They had to say no because he and his wife were responsible for George and his siblings and they would go to an orphanage if his parents said yes.
Takei spoke about what it was like for him to be a closeted gay man in his early years. “The first difference was looking like this. The second was feeling differently, but I could act like the other boys.” He said that sometimes he would pretend to date some of his female friends to fit in.
He said that actor Tab Hunter was one of his early heroes and that he went to see every one of his movies like Battle Cry and Damn Yankees. And that they seemed to find a reason for him to take his shirt off in everyone one of his movies. But that when Tab was exposed as gay that he disappeared after that and didn’t get anymore roles. And that at the time he had no choice but to accept that was the way it was and stay in the closet himself since he knew he wanted to be an actor.
Later when an audience member asked him what his favorite episode of Star Trek was, he said it was “The Naked Time” because he got to take his shirt off and run around with a foil. “Take that Tab Hunter,” he joked.
Takei said that his father taught him Abraham Lincoln’s words from the Gettysburg Address “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” “Democracy’s weakness is also in those words,” he said, “because people are fallible. We as citizens have to be informed and actively engaged.”
He talked about how have worked on the presidential campaigns for Adlai Stevenson and for Tom Bradley the first Black mayor of LA.
Tom Bradley served as mayor after Takei was famous for his role of Hikaru Sulu on Star Trek, so when he appointed Takei to the Department of Transportation in LA he said “If he can be a helms man on the Starship Enterprise he can get people around in LA.”
He talked about how he was lucky to get good parts in Hollywood as a Japanese man because he said previously Asians had been presented as stereotypes that they only were allowed to play buffoons and servants.
He said that after WWII his family lived in the Mexican section of LA. He said that his mother learned to cook Mexican and that “the best enchiladas in the neighborhood were cooked by Mrs. Takei.” It was during this time that he learned to speak Spanish too. “Our diversity is a gift given to us.”
He spoke about how diverse the cast of Star Trek was. James Doohan who played Montgomery Scott wasn’t really Scottish, he was Irish Canadian. William Shatner’s whose Captain Kirk hailed from Riverside Iowa, was really Canadian. And Nichelle Nichols whose character Uhura was from Africa, was African American, but also had Cherokee Indian ancestors and she said a “blond blue-eyed ancestor or two”. He called her the most American out of all of us.
Takei told a story about how he talked to Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry at a pool party. Roddenberry was alone on the far side of the pool looking out over LA and Takei seized the moment to have a private chat with him. He talked about how socially progressive the show had been but said that there was one issue they hadn’t tackled, that there should be a story about gay rights. Roddenberry said that he’d like to do a show about that but that he pushed the envelope with the first interracial kiss on TV (Captain Kirk and Uhura kiss in the episode “Plato’s Stepchildren”) and that it was the lowest rated show they ever did because many conservative stations had refused to air the episode. He said he didn’t want the show to get cancelled or they wouldn’t be able to say anything. Takei said he understood that it wasn’t a subject that was ready to be discussed publicly yet.
Then Takei talked about how Star Trek in years since has become more progressive and been able to tell stories with LGBTQ+ characters. However, he talked about how he got a phone call when they were filming Star Trek (2009) from John Cho who was playing Hikaru Sulu in the remake. And Cho told him that they wanted to pay tribute to Takei and they wanted to make Sulu gay in the movie. And Takei said he told him that would be great but maybe they should make a new character who was gay as a tribute because Sulu wasn’t gay originally. And he said he got a phone call from JJ Abrams and they discussed the same thing. And he said he want to go see the movie and he didn’t know what to expect how were they going to show that Sulu was gay? And he said at the end of the movie there is a scene where Sulu sees his daughter and gives her a big hug. And then he sees the man with her and gives him a hug and a brief kiss and they walk off with the girl holding hands. “And I thought, that’s it! That could be his brother or his neighbor.”
He spoke about the importance of libraries he said “You guys are a pillar of democracy. And how libraries offer guidance to people and create a more well-informed public. “We have a Klingon in the Whitehouse!” He said referring to Donald Trump. He said that your job is of vitally importance and that he knows librarians are in a very dangerous position. He spoke about how Trump had recently fired the Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden. “He fired her because she didn’t want to delete DEI. She is a Black woman, she is DEI.” He then said that librarians, “Bring sanity into this world”
Takei spoke about how in 2003 Massachusetts ruled in favor of gay marriage and that then an equality bill came up in California too, but that Arnold Schwarzenegger, even though he promised on the campaign trail that he had lots of gay friends, vetoed the bill. He said this was one of the things that caused him to come out of the closet. “I came out and I came out roaring!”
He urged people to not give up hope for a better tomorrow he said “Ultimately, we will prevail. We have always prevailed…right now we are in turbulence that all democracies go through before they get better.” And he repeated that we have to be actively engaged in our democracy.
On a sad note, Takei was having trouble walking out on the stage. He was leaning on Meg Lemke who was conducting the interview, and he said that “Technology advances forward but my body ages and stops functioning. He said that he has had several surgeries that failed and that he is going to soon have another one. He said that he is being wheeled around in a wheelchair but that he got Lemke’s help to walk out on stage because it embarrasses him.
And audience member asked him about technology and how his facebook page, which is constantly posting, makes us all feel very close to him. He said “I’m being beamed to everyone’s social media feeds. I’m always beaming!”
John Grayshaw is a Library Manager in Pennsylvania . He is also the Administrator of the ‘Science Fiction Book Club’ Facebook group.
