Takekuma Norman Takei is the father of George Takei. Takekuma Norman Takei’s son is a Japanese-American actor, author and activist. He began his acting career as a young man in the late 1950s. As an actor, George gained popularity for his role as Hikaru Sulu, helmsman of the fictional starship USS Enterprise in the television series Star Trek and subsequent films.

Takekuma Norman Takei: Bio Summary

Who is George Takei’s father?

Takekuma Norman Takei was born on 24 October 1902 in Yamanashi, Japan. At a very young age, Takekuma lost his mother and was brought to the United States by his father, Yataro Takei. He completed High school and attended Hills Business College. All those years, he developed a love for baseball and traveled the Bay Area with the Japantown Seals baseball team.

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Takekuma Norman Takei and his wife Fumiko Emily Takei

Takekuma Norman Takei fell in love with and wed his wife Fumiko Emily Takei, a California native in 1935. The couple’s marriage was blessed with three children- two boys and a girl. Takekuma who was an admirer of the English royalty gave his two boys their names after them. The first son was given the name George in honor of King George VI because he was born in 1937, the year of the coronation.

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Henry, of course, was the name of the second baby, a large, chubby infant who was as fat as the pudgy King Henry VIII. He and Fumiko gave their daughter, the third child, the name Nancy Reiko in honor of a friend they both admired. The family lived happily with Takekuma running a successful dry cleaning business in the Wilshire district near the fashionable Bullock’s Wilshire department store until things took a different turn.

Their lives were drastically altered by the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor. Executive Order 9066, issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, ordered the evacuation of all Japanese Americans from the west coast. Armed soldiers compelled the Takei family to leave their home on Garnet Street and lodge in the stables of the neighboring Santa Anita Race Track. George Takei and his parents and siblings had to sleep in a cramped horse stall that was still reeking of horse odor.

Later, the Takei family was transported two-thirds across the country to the swamps of southeastern Arkansas to a camp bristling with barbed wire fences, guarded by tall sentry towers, euphemistically called, Rohwer Relocation Center. George Takei revealed in his father’s character analysis– “Daddy initially struggles to maintain a hopeful outlook. But once at Rohwer, Daddy undergoes a major change. He believes that everyone in his block should feel like part of a community, so he begins to organize.“

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George Takei’s father, Takekuma Norman Takei who was fluent both in English and Japanese easily communicated with both the older immigrant group as well as the English-speaking Nisei generation. Though he didn’t particularly consider himself a leader at the beginning, he was asked to serve as block manager, he willingly accepted the urgency of serving.

Due to discriminatory immigration laws, Takekuma Norman Takei is barred from applying for citizenship. He said to his son, George “This government took my business, our home, and our freedom. The one thing this government won’t take form me is my dignity.”

The war ended in 1945 and the Takei family returned back home to Los Angeles. The Takeis had several relatives living in Japan during World War II. Among them were George’s aunt and infant cousin who lived in Hiroshima and who were both killed during the atomic bombing that destroyed the city. In George Takei’s own words, “My aunt and baby cousin [were] found burnt in a ditch in Hiroshima.“

What happened to George Takei’s father?

At the end of World War II, after leaving Tule internment camp, The Takei family was left without any bank accounts, home, or family business; this left them unable to find any housing, so they lived on Skid Row, Los Angeles for five years. In 1950, just four years after returning from the camps, Takekuma Norman Takei and the family were able to save enough to buy a three-bedroom house back in their old mid-Wilshire neighborhood.

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He sold the dry cleaning shop and bought a grocery store on Western Avenue in south Los Angeles. A few years later, Takekuma Norman Takei sold the grocery and went into real estate where he found his success. To finally extend citizenship to immigrants from Asia, Congress passed the McCarran-Walter Act in 1952, which altered the terminology of citizenship naturalization. George Takei’s father, Takekuma was now registered to be a citizen.

George Takei’s father Takekuma Norman Takei passed away at the age of 76 on September 22, 1979, of an illness he contracted on one of his exotic travels like the Soviet Union, Kenya and Tanzania, Iran, India, the South Pacific, and more popular tourist destinations such as London, Paris, Venice, Australia and New Zealand. He was laid to rest at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Glendale, Los Angeles County, California, USA.

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