2020: The Year of the Dumpsterfire

*peers from behind fingers*

Is it over yet? Have we finally moved on to 2021?

2020 at a glance

It will be interesting to see how history looks back on this single incident that left its impact over the entire world. Like how there’s a (fading) collective memory for World War II, or how everyone remembers when the Twin Towers were hit. Or even scientifically, everything pre-atom bomb and everything post-atom bomb, as measured by levels of cesium in stuff.

Anyway.

What follows is something like a year in review, but divided into categories for your easy reading:

Books!: They Called Us Enemy

Today, February 19, is called the Day of Remembrance in Japanese American communities and remembers the day that FDR signed E)9066, authorizing the WW2 camps.

 

They Called Us the Enemy is George Takei’s first person account of the Japanese Incarceration camps during World War II and you ought to drop everything and find yourself a copy right now.

Not only is it a wonderfully illustrated autobiography of a pop culture icon (“Oh myyyy“), it’s a moving narrative that captures both the emotion and the history surrounding the camps. The book presents everything in a very accessible and entertaining format. It makes some interesting and uncomfortable parallels between then and today, but only when those parallels are present. That is, I didn’t find it preachy or trying to force any correlations which may not be present, for which I am grateful.