9 LONG CENTER PRESENTS 2017-2018 W I N T E R/S P R I N G S E A S O N 9
AN EVENING WITH
GEORGE TAKEI
FRI, MAY 4 | DELL HALL | 8PM
This 21st Century Renaissance Man Has Seen
And Done It All
George Takei is known around the world for his founding role in the
acclaimed television series Star Trek, in which he played Hikaru Sulu,
helmsman of the Starship Enterprise. He's an actor, social justice activist,
and social media mega-power. His acting career has spanned five decades,
with more than 40 feature films and hundreds of television guest-starring
roles to his credit.
But George Takei's story goes where few stories have gone before. With
the outbreak of World War II, Los Angeles, California-born Takei and
his family were placed behind the barbed-wire enclosures of United States
internment camps along with 120,000 other Japanese-Americans. He
spent most of his childhood at Camp Rohwer in the swamps of Arkansas
and at wind-swept Camp Tule Lake in northern California. At the end of
the war, Takei's family returned to their native Los Angeles.
Now a community activist, Takei is an active member of the Human Rights
Campaign, the largest national lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender
political organization. In 2004 in recognition of his contribution to the
Japan-United States relationship, Takei was conferred with the Order of
the Rising Sun by His Majesty, the Emperor of Japan. In 2013, Takei won
the Shorty Award for Distinguished Achievement in Internet Culture. He
has 1.7 million followers on Twitter, and was named "One of the Internet's
50 Most Fascinating People" by Cosmopolitan magazine. ■
GEORGE TAKEI