This month we will be discussing: They Called Us Enemy by George Takei.

This session will be led by Maddi Spletter (She/Her).

Everyone is welcome! This is a FREE event.

George Takei has captured hearts and minds worldwide with his captivating stage presence 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 joys and terrors of growing up under legalized racism, his mother's hard choices, his father's 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 co-writers Justin Eisinger & Steven Scott and artist Harmony Becker for the journey of a lifetime.

Maddi Spletter is a Social Studies Teacher and Figure Skating Coach. You might also find her in the summer working at the ReStore where she enjoys finding hidden treasures.

She is a UW-Madison Alumni and takes a lot of pride in being a Badger. In the free time she has, she enjoys painting, crafting, and watching anime such as Delicious in Dungeon and Studio Ghibli films. When she reads, she tends to read graphic novels as she really loves seeing other people’s art style and loves it as a great medium for storytelling. She also really likes YA fiction, the majority of it being fantasy or mythology based.

Music is also a huge part of Maddi’s life. Whether it is used for skating programs or to focus, Maddi’s taste in music is pretty all over the place- from Zac Brown Band to the Supremes to Taylor Swift to Eminem, Maddi would love to know what you are listening to so she can add it to her 113 hour playlist.