As both an Asian-American and an LGBT American, I have borne witness to some of the most egregious injustices and tragedies of our national history, where both the public and the politicians turned against us to devastating effect. Many know that I grew up in internment camps where we were held without trial or even charge for years, simply because we happened to look like the people who bombed Pearl Harbor. Fewer remember that, as a young man, it was illegal for me in many states to marry a Caucasian person due to antimiscegenation laws. And as a gay man, I stayed deeply in the closet out of fear that I would not find work as an “out” actor. That same fear rendered me silent even as the scourge of the AIDS epidemic in the ‘80s and ’90s took so many of our community, while the government turned a blind, callous eye.

(via George Takei:’Welcome to the Resistance | Advocate.com)