Author Event Free For Students - Long Beach Reads One Book Program

From the Long Beach Unified School District:

February 20, 2020

The popular Long Beach Reads One Book program has been revitalized by Long Beach City College and the LBCC Foundation after a six-year hiatus. The New York Times Bestselling graphic novel “They Called Us Enemy” by actor, author and social justice activist George Takei was selected as this year’s book. The weeks-long program will conclude with a community event with Takei from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday, March 19 at the LBCC Liberal Arts Campus Hall of Champions Gymnasium, where Long Beach Unified School District students can attend free with student I.D. The campus is located at 4901 E. Carson St., Long Beach.

“They Called Us Enemy” is a graphic memoir recounting Takei’s childhood imprisoned within American internment camps during World War II and his firsthand account of those years behind barbed wire, the joys of childhood and the 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.

The Los Angeles Times called the book “powerful, moving and relevant.” The Washington Post describes Takei as “an increasingly powerful voice for oppressed communities” and “an unflinching force in these divisive times.”

The book can be purchased at Gatsby Books in Long Beach, major retail and online bookstores, and at both LBCC Viking Bookstores.

At the March 19 event, Takei also will discuss his world-renowned role playing Hikaru Sulu on Star Trek. Tickets for non-students are $10 and include a raffle ticket to win an autographed copy of “They Called Us Enemy.”

Visit LBCC.edu/LBReadsOneBook to RSVP.

This press release was produced by the Long Beach Unified School District. The views expressed here are the author’s own.