Home Thread for Nos Llamaron Enemigo | Week 1

Welcome to the home thread for Nos llamaron Enemigo, as part of the Spanish fiction book club.

:es: https://learnnatively.com/book/8349271df1/

Summary - Spanish

En estas impactantes memorias en formato de novela gráfica, el actor/autor/activista George Takei rememora sucesos imborrables de su infancia en los campos de concentración en América.En 1942, bajo órdenes del presidente Franklin D. Roosevelt, cada persona de ascendencia japonesa en la costa oeste fue capturada y enviada a uno de diez “centros de reubicación”, a cientos o miles de millas de sus hogares, donde permanecerían durante años bajo vigilancia armada. NOS LLAMARON ENEMIGO es la historia en primera persona de Takei sobre esos años detrás de una alambrada de púas. ¿Qué significa ser americano? ¿Quién puede determinarlo? Cuando el mundo está en tu contra, ¿qué puede hacer un solo individuo? Para contestar a estas preguntas, George Takei se une a los escritores Justin Eisinger y Steven Scott y a la artista Harmony Becker en el recorrido de toda una vida.

Summary - English

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 a stunning graphic memoir, Takei revisits his haunting childhood in American concentration camps, as one of over 100,000 Japanese Americans imprisoned by the U.S. government during World War II. Experience the forces that shaped an American icon—and America itself—in this gripping tale of courage, country, loyalty, and love.

Club Schedule

Week Start Date Starting page # of pages
Week 1 Feb 10 5 50
Week 2 Feb 17 55 50
Week 3 Feb 24 105 50
Week 4 March 3 155 50
Will you be reading along when the club starts on February 10?
  • Yes
  • No
  • I’ll be reading, but at my own pace
0 voters
What type of media will you be consuming the book as?
  • Physical
  • eBook
0 voters
2 Likes

Does anyone happen to have a physical copy who can check page numbers for me? Amazon doesn’t have a preview, unfortunately.

I’ve been meaning to read more in Spanish, and my local library seems to have the book available, so I guess I’ll join in :smiling_face:
I’ll try to go tomorrow to check page numbers.
Just an FYI, the book is also called Éramos el enemigo, maybe depending on whether the translation is Spain-Spanish or LatAm-Spanish?

4 Likes

Ah, that’s a good tip! Interesting change of nuance in that title as well.

…Huh, I never considered checking mine. Great idea!

2 Likes

My library’s online portal says it’s 204 pages, but I’m guessing you’re looking for chapter lengths? I can’t make it to the branch that has it for a few weeks, sorry.

If any of y’all are in the states, it’s worth looking to see if any of these camps were near where you live. Most were in the west and mountain west, but at least one was in the east. Some are preserved, some have memorials, some have small museums. some have been completely erased. But they are all reminders of the horrors of bigotry and racism that may change targets but continue even if we pretend otherwise.

5 Likes

My experience reading Persépolis was surprisingly smooth so I think I’ll join you for this one!

Don’t love reading comics digitally so I’ve got a physical copy on the way (though my library has it digitally so that’s a backup if it doesn’t arrive on time).

3 Likes

Woo-hoo! Glad to have you with us!

3 Likes

I’ve got my digital copy if that helps. The original page numbers are visible at the bottom of the scans.

The story starts on page 5 and finishes on page 204. There are no chapter markers I could see, it just runs straight through. The text density is a bit higher in the second half of the book.

There are 3 pages of text at the end - 2 are about the creators of the book, and 1 is a thank you page (pages 206-208).

2 Likes

Same here, the story runs from page 5 to 204, then there are a few pages of “annex”, mainly photos, and then the 3 pages of thext that Micki mentions.

3 Likes

That’s interesting about the two variant titles! I ended up just buying myself a copy of Nos llamaron enemigo because that was the version that bookshop.org had, and I like to get my books from there whenever possible. It should be arriving right on time for the club, assuming it doesn’t get lost or misplaced in the mail somehow.

3 Likes

Interesting. :thinking: I wonder how it would be best to break this up. Maybe just a straight certain number of pages/week would be easiest. I’m not sure if this is the type of book to have cliffhangers, but we’ll see.

How many pages would you like to read per week?
  • 15 pgs/week (~13 weeks)
  • 20 pgs/week (~10 weeks)
  • 25 pgs/week (~8 weeks)
  • 30 pgs/week (~7 weeks)
  • 35 pgs/week (~6 weeks)
  • Read it in 4 weeks
0 voters

I added in some higher number page options, since this should be less text dense than a regular novel, but haven’t actually reviewed it myself yet to see if those numbers make sense.

2 Likes

I’d actually wondered if we read this over four weeks. There are occasional pages with no text, there are occasional pages that are more text dense. Maybe six weeks might be better. It would be helpful for people to look at the first few pages and see what they think.

We could always speed up or slow down once we get going.

2 Likes

I mean, I’m always cool with a smaller number as well. :+1: Added that option to the poll as well.

2 Likes

I’ll abstain from voting on pace as I’m not a learner per say and reading speed isn’t a problem, I’m good with whatever option you land on :blush:

4 Likes

I hadn’t planned to join, but (1) george takei (2) gitmo being repurposed to hold immigrants. I don’t know how my time will work (I’m over extended language wise so I’ll race ahead or fall behind as I’m able) so I’ll abstain from voting on pace as well.

4 Likes

Since I don’t have my copy yet (and won’t have it until it arrives, haha) and don’t really have an idea of how much text there is to read per page on average, I think I’ll also abstain from voting and just go with whatever everyone else decides.

I’m excited to see so many people joining for this! Excellent nomination, @Micki!

3 Likes

I think we’ve basically got all of our readers accounted for poll-wise, then, if my count is correct. :thinking: I’ll leave it open for a while yet since we’ve still got time before club start, but it’s looking like a tie between 35 pgs/week (6 weeks) and 50 pgs/week (4 weeks).

4 Likes

Hi everyone! Week 1 starts today! All discussion will be in this thread. We’ll be reading the first 50 pages of the book this week!

4 Likes
Week 1

Read week 1 this evening. I was going to say first that I really like the story telling style so far. I like the pictures showing George Takei in the future telling his story and reflecting back, and particularly being the Roosevelt residence sharing his story.

The early part of this week was quite distressing thinking about the experience of those Japanese Americans. I knew they were put in internment camps, but I don’t think I’d thought about the period leading up to it. Being forced to sell off your possessions cut price seems particularly cruel - not only losing your freedom but also losing your house and business and everything you’ve built as a family.

It’s interesting how they managed to protect George and Henry from the horror of the situation, to the point that he remembers it being an exciting adventure!

2 Likes
Week 1 reading

This is going to be an interesting read for sure. I wasn’t really aware of the camps in the US, how they came to be etc (I might have heard of it briefly in school but it is not a topic we ever covered), so I already have learnt a lot through these first 50 pages. For some reason I assumed the camps were made for Japanese people arriving to the US during WW2 (same as the Spaniards going to France in 1939), but to have to just pack up in 10 minutes, and leave your own house, business, and life, after 2 generations living on US soil… It takes a whole different meaning.

Yes, that was very interesting, it reminded me of the movie Life is Beautiful. Very heartbreaking for the parents, who on top of everything have to take on the responsibility of making sure children get to be children…

1 Like