To the Stars by George Takei

★★★★★

I LOVE George Takei!

I actually first read this book back in college for a Japanese culture class. In fact, George Takei was a guest speaker! Anyway, I recently read George Takei's latest graphic novel, It Rhymes with Takei, and realized that the graphic novel borrows a lot from this book - so much so that I was inspired to re-read it (again). I wanted to piece together a fuller picture of his life, pulling together events from both books into a single timeline.

This memoir focuses first on his family growing up, then chronicles his acting career, as well as his political and civic activism. Even when I read this book 30 years ago, I remember noting that it never mentioned romantic relationships at all. Little did I know, back then, that the "journalist Brad Altman" whom he thanked in his acknowledgements, and who once visited him on location during a film shoot, was actually his significant other!

George Takei's writing is descriptive and engaging. The first part is invaluable in its telling of an American childhood spent inside the barbed-wire fences of Japanese American concentration camps. The strength and comfort George Takei drew from his parents - from Daddy and Mama - made my heart swell. Throughout the book, he periodically returned to his Japanese American roots as he recounted events from his life as an actor or as an activist. Sometimes, the two identities overlapped, as when he tirelessly advocated for Sulu's promotion, a fictional development that not only benefited his character, but also illustrated the "virile meritocracy" (p. 398) that was missing in real life as Asian Americans ran into "glass ceilings" that halted their professional advancement (now specifically termed "bamboo ceilings"). Inspired in part by his father's example, George Takei came to be extensively involved with progressive politics and civil rights activism. He has a life-long commitment to the ideals of "an American culture, strengthened by its diversity instead of balkanized by it" (p. 210), perfectly represented in Gene Roddenberry's vision for Star Trek: "infinite diversity in infinite combinations." (p. 405-406)

I wasn't even a fan of Star Trek when I read this book in college, but I'm a big fan now, and it was great fun reading all his behind-the-scenes stories about the TV series, the films, his friendships with his co-stars, and even his thoughts on the "new" The Next Generation series.