Takei and ALLEGIANCE Give Valentine's Day Surprise to Internment Camp Survivor

Picture this. Actor George Takei best known for "Star Trek" and "Heroes" and star of the Broadway bound musical "Allegiance", will surprise and present Marge Wada, one of the last elderly survivors of the Japanese American internment camps in World War 2 with hundreds of Valentine's cards sent by fans from all over the world. 
 
Valentine's Day recalls to many elderly Japanese Americans the bitterness of Executive Order 9066 which set in motion the internment of 120,000 innocent citizens and permanent residents of the U.S. Takei's own experiences during this time were the inspiration behind the new musical "Allegiance", in which he stars opposite Tony Award-winning-actress Lea Salonga.
 
"Allegiance", which is set during World War II in the backdrop of the Japanese camps, is sponsoring the "Mob Marge" program along with the Japanese American National Museum, where Wada has been a volunteer for years, educating many on the history and injustice of the internment.  
 
A special viral Facebook application will be set into motion on Monday, February 7th on the page of "Allegiance" The Musical.   For every ten people who click to "join" the mob, Marge will receive a card with personalized Valentine's messages from each of the ten well-wishers. Fans and people from around the world can join the mob easily and for free at mobmarge.allegiancemusical.com   Mr. George Takei will hand deliver the cards to Wada right around Valentine's Day.  
 
"Mid-February has always been a sad time for our community, and each year there are fewer and fewer of us survivors around to tell first hand what happened.  We want our story to be remembered. In 1942, a whole set of American citizens lost everything-their homes, business and freedom--simply because we happened to look like the people who bombed Pearl harbor," says Takei, who himself spent his childhood in two internment camps.
 
"It's a terribly important, yet terribly overlooked, part of American history, and we hope that through gestures like these and awareness throughout the world, such a thing can never, ever happen again."  
 
For More Information: Allegiance is an original Broadway-bound musical starring Lea Salonga and George Takei, set during the era of the Japanese American internment, and telling an epic story of love, loss and war. Allegiance tells the story of an American family's struggle to endure and thrive in the face of injustice and adversity. The Japanese American National Museum is the largest museum in the United States dedicated to sharing the experience of Americans of Japanese ancestry. Its mission is to promote understanding and appreciation of America's ethnic and cultural diversity by sharing the Japanese American experience.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride/WM Photos

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