The creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry,
was a true visionary.
The starship Enterprise was supposed to be
souring through space in the 23rd century.
By that time the crew of Enterprise reflected
the philosophy that Gene Roddenberry had.
Gene Roddenberry felt that the Enterprise
was a metaphor for starship earth and the
strength of this starship lay in its diversity.
People of many different backgrounds, many
different cultures, many different experiences,
many different ethnicities coming together
and working in concert as a team boldly going
where no one had on before.
And that was depicted in the make up of the
crew.
African-American women as the communications
chief, the captain was a North American.
The engineer was a European and my character
Sulu was to represent Asia.
The problem he had was to find a name for
this Asian character from the 23rd century
because every Asian surname is nationally
specific.
Tanaka is Japanese.
Wong is Chinese.
Kim is Korea.
And 20th century Asia was turbulent with warfare,
colonization, rebellion and he didn't want
to suggest that.
He wanted to depict and suggest a much more
enlightened society.
And he wanted to find a name that suggested
all of Asia, Pan Asia and that was a real
dilemma for him.
He had a map of Asia pinned on the wall and
he was staring at it trying to get some inspiration
for the Asian character.
And he found off the coast of the Philippines
the Sulu Sea.
And he thought ah, the waters of a sea touch
all shores, embracing all of Asia.
And that's how my character came to have the
name Sulu.
And so that's the kind of vision he had projecting
into the 23rd century.
However, I did very privately bring up the
issue of gays and lesbians.
And he was certainly, as a sophisticated man,
mindful of that, but he said - in one episode
we had a biracial kiss, Captain Kirk and Uhura
had a kiss.
That show was literally blacked out in the
south, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia
didn't air that; our ratings plummeted.
It was the lowest rated episode that we had.
And he said, "I'm treading a fine tight wire
here.
I'm dealing with issues of the time.
I'm dealing with the civil rights movement,
the Vietnam War, the Cold War and I need to
be able to make that statement by staying
on the air."
He said, "If I dealt with that issue I wouldn't
be able to deal with any issue because I would
be canceled."
And I understood that because I was still
closeted at that time.
I talked to him as a liberal rather than as
a gay man and I understood his position on
that.
So that's the way Star Trek envisioned our
future in the 23rd century, but I think we're
getting closer to that utopian society that
Gene Roddenberry visualized, much more rapidly
than even the technology.
We had this amazing technology on Star Trek.
We had this device on our hip; walked all
over the ship and whenever we wanted to talk
to someone we would rip it off and start talking.
Back in the '60s that was an astounding device.
No wires attached to it?
And now in the 21st century, early part of
the 21st century, we not only talk to people
but all the things that we do there, send
text messages, watch movies, listen to music,
it's amazing the kind of progress that we're
making, both technologically an societally.
