At last night’s Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards ceremony, They Called Us Enemy received the coveted Eisner Award, the highest honor in the comics community as voted upon by professional peers, in the category of “Best Reality-Based Work”. The heartfelt graphic memoir by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott, and Harmony Becker presents Takei’s firsthand account of a childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps during World War II.

“What a tremendous honor to be recognized by our peers in the comics industry with this Eisner Award for They Called Us Enemy,” say the creators in a joint statement. “We offer our deep thanks to the judges who nominated this book and everyone that voted. We also owe a special thanks to all the readers, librarians, educators, and shopkeepers that have embraced this story and spread the word. Because of you, the story of the wrongful imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II will be more widely known by future generations, and in that education there is hope for a brighter tomorrow.”