American history. And its really a worrisome thing that so Many Americans dont know American History and are swept up by this mans rhetoric. Its a commentary on our education and thats why its so vitally important that we know our history and particularly the more shameful parts of American History. Because we learn more, i think, from those chapters where our democracy faltered than the glorious chapters that were exposed to all of the time. So people like donald trump need to know our history. The mayor of roanoke has also expressed the same kind of comment and i extended an invitation to him and i talked to him over the telephone as well. You did . Hes a charming southern gentleman. [ laughter ] and he hasnt responded to invitation yet. But he extended to me, and he has a commission, Human Rights Commission or Something Like that, that extended an invitation to me to come and speak there. And so i am serving as an exam. For the mayor of roanoke. I have accepted that invitation and we have set a date when i will visit roanoke. And ive said to mayor bowers of roanoke that his time to see allegiance is limited. Were closing on the 14th of february. So you better hurry up. Because im going to roanoke. Thats wonderful of you. Well on that point, one of the astonishing things to me in this latest little cycle of hysteria and xenophobia was that people were bringing up the detention the japanese americans, not as something we should learn from and not repeat but as an historical precedent for these measures. I thought that was terrible and spoke of a real lack of historical education and awareness. This is something that seems to happen over and over again. Americans suffer some sort of attack, we get scared, we overreact, later we say well never do it again but we do. So my question for you i know this is a big question is how do you think we as a people can get better . Because i often quote your father actually in my book talks. A nation can be no better than its people. And what can we as americans do do you think to try to minimize the chance that well do Something Like this again . Our Education System has to be more comprehensive. And particularly these important chapters of American History. And i personally have taken it on as our mission from my 20s on. Ive been on speaking tours, to universities, to corporate gatherings, to governmental agencies. We founded a museum in los angeles called the Japanese American National museum where we institutionalize the story of the interment of japanese americans. Because as the generation that experienced it die off and those that didnt spear it dont share it with their deskcend dents, i will fade away. Buy build an institution, we institutionalize the story. And by dramatizing it and telling it from the broadway stage. We brought that. And weve been working with the board of education with the state of arkansas where the two camps were and we were incarcerated in one of the two. And weve invited teachers, a dozen teacher to come to the Japanese American National museum every summer. We fund their this program. And get them to incorporate the chapter on the interment to i think to the educational curriculum in arkansas, particularly because its a part of arkansas history. There are two interment camps there. So we need to, as individuals and as organizations, to try to prevent that from happening by ensuring that these stories will be remembered. In the same way that we remember the great hugh reroes of the ci Rights Movement and all of the events that happened being made into movies like selma last year with an amazing performance by a british activist playing dr. Martin luther king. The death camps of europe have been dramatized in movies, novels and television programs. I think by telling this story, using the media and all of the accesses that we have to make this story an organic part of our american experience, then we do our bit to keep it from happening again and making american a better america. Donald trumps motto is make America Great again. But in fact what hes doing is making america disgraced again. [ applause ] i know i speak for everyone when i say that youre an inspiration in this regard. And its really been an honor and privilege to share with stage with you. Weve now got time for question and answer. There are i think people with wireless mikes on the side. So i will call on people who raise their hands, but please dont ask the question until you get a microphone. Starting over here. Hi, thank you very much for allegiance the musical. I thought it was beautiful and very important story to be told. However, it has been met with some criticism that it is not 100 historically accurate and that depicting the jacl and mike, who are actually real entities, a real person and a real entity kind of clouds maybe the judgment of the people in the audience thinking that everything that is happening in the musical really did happen in the camps. What is your response to the criticism that allegiance has received . Allegiance is a work of theater art. We tell the truth by interpreting the truth. For example, most Everybody Knows mango pin van gos painti. He captures the emotional truth of the landscape that hes looking at. The dappled sunlight and the swaying of the grass in the breeze. Everything that we talk about in allegiance happened, not in that camp or not in that time, but they happened and thats part of the truth of it. You dont and so its essentially a fictional story. The family is a fictional family. However, we do use actual facts, organizations and an individual because mike mosako played a critical part. He was a very active actor in the interment story, as was the organization, Japanese American Citizens League of which he was a general secretary. And you cant tell the story of the civil war without having an actual president of the United States. Abraham lincoln. You can have a fictional story. But Abraham Lincoln really made things happen. And so he is included in a fictional story. Mr. Roosevelt here has written a fictional story but he uses actual people that existed. Justice frankfurter, justice douglas, attorney general biddle. These are actual real people. But hes telling a fictional story. And we are telling a fictional story using actual people and actual institution and actual facts. And you know, were not a dock men tarn. I know that that criticism was made by a dock men tearian. And his job is to tell the photographic truth. We are van goghs of the theater. We capture the emotion and the essential truth of that experience. [ applause ] in the middle here, can we pass the microphone to the man in the blue shirt there . I want to just thank you also. I belong to a japanese american buddhist temple and one of the offerings in our library is a book called rice country. And in that book in the early chapters they talk about the jacl. But in doing so they portray it as the japanese american collusion league more than anything else. And i want to thank you for actually setting that straight. And in my mind, allowing me to understand the mitigation that the jacl played in trying to protect the japanese American Population in the interment camps. My question is, i see a lot of the results of japanese americans trying to stay under the radar post war. The mission in the United States is the buddhist churches of america. Its service form patterns a methodist kind of form. And i guess my question is, is there any way around that . I just dont even know. What is that . Around what . Well, around i see people who actually are around your age who are who grew up in camps and youre right, they wont talk about it. From my own experience in high school, my High School Social studies teacher, two sentences, yeah, it happened. So what. And yeah. I dont even well there are people that do talk about it. My father certainly talked to me about it after dinner. There were those that even challenged. Professor roosevelt can tell you about cases where they stood up and challenged the interment, all the way up to the supreme court. And failed in 1944. Ultimately korematsu prevailed, finding fault in the original ruling. So there were those that stood up. And the resisters did stand up. And thats why we i focus on the resisters in allegiance. They stood up and said this is wrong, and im going to stand for my rights as an american. And they paid a high price for it. So, you know, people did take a stand. They did speak out. And i want to mention one extraordinary elected official of the time. The governor of colorado, governor ralph carr, the only elected official at that time to take a principled stand and speak out against the interment. And for that his political career was demolished. He ran for reelection and was slaughtered by it. So there are people. I mean, theres this myth that japaneseamericans didnt take a stand. They sheepishly went into the camps. Not true. People did take a stand. Others resisted. Others challenged it all the way to the supreme court. On the right there. Yes. Just a quick question. Where are you . Did earl warren ever apologize . Where are you. There you are. The gorgeous lady over here. By the way, you guys were both impressive but i love me some george. What was your question . Did earl warren ever apologize or admit that that was constitutionally incorrect . He never apologized during his living years, but he left a memoir and in that he said the greatest regret in my life was the role he played in the interment of japanese americans. So he owned up to it in his memoirs, which were published after his passing. In the front. Can you wait for the microphone. She needs to get a mic. I was wondering what kind of building you people, your descendants would put into it and there are you get enough food, clothes or whatever they needed. And how many people in one camp and how many buildings were in camp . And what kind of building . Wooden building or what . So many family must be there. There were each of them. Living in one place. Each families are living in one place or not. There were ten camps all together. They were built in military fashion. Black tar paper barracks all arranged in a row. And they were divided into little units with a paperthin partitions. Black tar paper, actually. No privacy. We all ate in a mess hall, a massive dining area. We all showered in a mass shower. The latrines were just toilet pots in a row. No partitions. And particularly for women, it was extremely mortifying to use those partitionless toilets. And bathing facilities. The internees themselves built those partitions. And some in camps had ofuros, japaneselike deep water, hot water baths. And so they made tubs out of the lumber that they were able to secure. But it was very raw. It was very primitive. All right. We have time for one more question, i think. But there will be a reception afterwards during which you should be able to ask more questions. In the second row here in the purple . Mr. Takei, im just wondering how you feel about the fact that allegiance is closing earlier than expected, and do you have plans to bring it back at some point . Well, we were expecting a much longer run, of course. But we accomplished so much with this production. This is the first time in American Theater history that the story of the internment of japanese americans is being told on the broadway stage. Its a landmark event. And this is the first time in American Theater history that so many gifted performing arts, Asian American performing artists are on that stage, using their own experiential background in the work that they are doing, playing full rounded characters. The kind of characters that the audience identifies with to the point where they are literally sobbing with us in the tragedy. And certainly we hear the laughter. And during the curtain calls, its not just applause and its not spontaneous standing up, its outright cheering that we hear. The record of average record of asians in the audience in the broadway theater is about 7 . Thats always been something that ive been concerned about, because when i go see David Henry Wong play and i look around, i see only a light sprinkling of asian faces. Asians are not theater goers. We dont support our artists. When you go see an august play, an African American playwright who talks about the African American experience in pittsburgh, and i look around, i see a dominant African American presence. But with allegiance, that 7 has been magnified, multipled. We have an average of 37 Asian Americans or asians in our theater. So weve accomplished a great deal in the time that in the five months that weve been playing on broadway. Were very proud of what weve accomplished. Broadway is the epitome of American Theater. But its essentially new york theater. And we played in san diego before prior to coming to broadway. At the distinguished, very respected regional theater the old globe theater. And there we broke their 77year record for both box office and attendance. So we have a fantastic record to be very proud of. And we want to continue that record. And we are exploring a lot of future options for allegiance. And those who havent come, i urge you strongly do come because you wont be able to see allegiance on broadway after the 14th of february. So yall come. [ applause ] thank you very much. Thank you very much. It was a great conversation. [ applause ] thank you very much. And as i said, im halfway through Kermit Roosevelts book with the same title as our musical, allegiance. It is a rip snorting good murder thriller. And i still dont know who the murderer is. And i told him when i met him, dont be a spoiler for me. I want to get to the last chapter without that knowledge. Bye allegiance, his book. [ applause ] thank you so much. Good luck with your book. Thank you. Yes. As i said, there is now a reception. You could buy my book. You could buy georges cd. You can ask more questions. I hope youll join us. The cspan bus stopped in philadelphia, pennsylvania to ask people about this weeks Democratic Convention and the issues most important to them in the 2016 president ial campaign. The most important issue to me thats facing our country today is gun control, because too many people that shouldnt have access to guns have access to guns, and that makes me and many other people feel very unsafe. Im dalen leech. Im a state senator in pennsylvania. Im at my eighth convention because im a huge history buff, and i love to come and be part of history and witness what goes on. Im here representing my district for Hillary Clinton, who i think is awesome and inspiring, and knowing the stakes and the selection, i think its very important to participate at every stage of the game. So looking forward to a great week. Well see you all there. Hey, my name is john easterling. Im a 19yearold college student, and im an at large elected delegate for Hillary Clinton here in the city of brotherly love, philadelphia. Im so happy to be here to be a delegate because in 2008 i sat on the sidelines as a young sixth grader. But this year i get to see history take place as a delegate to the Democratic National convention, ready to elect a true leader, and that is Hillary Clinton. Hi, my name is kim weaver, and i am the congressional candidate from iowas fourth congressional district. Some of you may have heard of my opponent, steve king. And he is actually one of the reasons why im here today. And part of that is because i want to show the rest of the world that iowans are actually more concerned about finding solutions than they are about creating divisions. We want to look for solutions for student debt reform, medicaid for seniors, as well as security for all families. Thank you. Im bob, a delegate representing west valley city, utah. I ran to be a delegate. I believe the government should work for the poor, for the common people. And i decided to become a delegate this year because i want us to fight for those, for the little people. And i wanted to make sure that utah had a voice on the democratic process. Voices from the road on cspan. The Democratic National convention is live from philadelphia this week. Watch every minute on cspan and listen live on the free cspan radio app, and keep up with all the latest convention developments. Get audio coverage of every minute of the convention, as well as Schedule Information about important speeches and events. Its easy to download from the apple store or google play. Watch the Convention Live or on demand any time on your desktop, tablet, or smartphone at cspan. Org, where youll find all of our Convention Coverage and the full convention schedule. Follow us at cspan on twitter, and like us on facebook to see video of newsworthy moments. The Democratic National convention, live from philadelphia, all this week on cspan. The cspan radio app, and cspan. Org. The Democratic National convention is live from philadelphia this week. Watch every minute on cspan. 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