George Takei has recorded a particularly poignant video supporting President Obama’s reelection and encouraging voter registration.

The ad, which encourages Asian-Americans to vote for Pres. Obama, begins with him recalling how his family was placed in an internment camp during World War II.

“There is a memory seared into my brain when I was five years old. It was the spring of 1942 when soldiers came marching up our driveway. Stomped up the front porch and banged on the door and ordered my family out of our home. We were in prison behind barbed wire fences for four years for the duration of the war, simply because we happened to look like the people who bombed Pearl Harbor.

We were American citizens. Yet, because of who we were, what we looked like, we were imprisoned without due process.”

Takei then flashes forward to note the tremendous progress that has been made for Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders since then: “It’s been seven decades now. We have made undreamed of advances. President Obama has had three Asian-Americans on the cabinet: Steven Chu, General Eric Shinseki and Gary Locke,” noting that it can only be done by increasing voter registration.

“We’ve got to be actively involved in the electoral process. If you really appreciate the price that has been paid for that right, you should be in there participating, protecting our interests and in so doing, making our democracy a truer democracy.”

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