George Takei to speak at SUNY Oneonta

Sep. 23—A famous actor and activist will speak at SUNY Oneonta next month.

According to a media release from the college, SUNY Oneonta has chosen George Takei's New York Times best-selling graphic memoir "They Called Us Enemy" for its 2022 Common Read. Takei will deliver the Mills Distinguished Lecture at 7 p.m. Oct. 24 in the Alumni Field House.

The college is working with high schools to provide local students with a copy of the book to read in advance of the event. The high school students will be invited to campus for a discussion with SUNY Oneonta students on Takei's book before the lecture. Participating high schools include Morris, Cooperstown, Sidney, Milford, Worcester and others, the release said.

Takei is best known for his role in Star Trek. He has won several awards and honors for his work on human rights and Japan-United States relations and is a prominent proponent of LGBTQIA+ rights.

"They Called Us Enemy," details Takei's personal experiences of growing up in internment camps, as well as the larger story of Japanese internment in the United States during WW II and the policies that enabled it. In his memoir, Takei "shares the joys and horrors of growing up under legalized racism, his mother's hard choices, his father's faith in democracy, and how those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future," the release said. "They Called Us Enemy" received an American Book Award in 2020. The book also was a winner of The Eisner Award and winner of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Young Adult Literature.

SUNY Oneonta's Common Read "advances diversity by encouraging students to examine and better understand topics such as equity, inclusion, and personal history through many lenses," the release said. It "aims to further infuse cultural literacy into our academic program" by asking the campus community to read a diversity-related book, which is then discussed in fall courses across several disciplines.

The Mills Distinguished Lectureship is named to honor the memory of Professor Albert Mills and his wife, Helena, whose bequest to the College at Oneonta Foundation led to the establishment in 1988 of a fund to bring prominent speakers to the campus. The purchase of the books for this year's Common Read was made possible, in part, by the SUNY Oneonta Alumni Association with charitable gifts to The Fund for Oneonta, the release said.