Blessing and Dedication Ceremony for
Japanese American Memorial
10 a.m., March 30, 2006
Note: Building this Memorial on Bainbridge Island is going to be a TFG project/event in the
fall of this year, if all goes according to plan. Preliminary work, organized by Guild member John Buday, involved building a gate in 2004.
Leaders from six different faiths will consecrate and dedicate the
land prior to construction of the first phase of the “Nidoto Nai
Yoni Let it not happen again” Japanese American Memorial on
Bainbridge Island.
The special ceremony will be held at 10 a.m., Thursday, March 30 at the site of the former Eagledale ferry landing, located at
the end of Taylor Avenue on the south side of Eagle Harbor (across
the harbor from the Winslow ferry dock), Bainbridge Island. This day marks the 64th anniversary of the first exclusion of Japanese Americans in WWII.
This American story began on March 30, 1942, when with only six
days prior notice and only allowed to bring what they could carry
or wear, 227 Bainbridge Island men, women and children were
gathered up by armed U.S. Army soldiers and delivered in military
trucks to the Eagledale ferry landing. There they boarded the ferry
Kehloken and departed on a lonely journey with an unknown
destination and fate.
These Bainbridge Island families were the first of more than
120,000 Japanese Americans – two-thirds of them United States
citizens – to be exiled from the West Coast. While more than
114,000 were sent to internment camps, others served in the U.S.
military, some were unjustly imprisoned and some moved away, but
all were forbidden to stay.
Their only crime was being Nikkei – persons of Japanese ancestry.
The Bainbridge Island/North Kitsap Interfaith Council – whose organization seven years ago initially proposed creating a memorial to honor the first Americans of Japanese ancestry to be forcibly removed from their homes and displaced to internment camps – will be joined by members of the Bainbridge Island Buddhist temple; the Islamic Center of Washington, Idriss Mosque; the Kol Shalom congregation; the Tsubaki Grand Shrine of America & Tsubaki Kannagara Jinja; the Suquamish tribe; the Seattle Baptist Church; and the Unitarian Universalist Church.
The National Parks Service has completed a two-year study that
could lead to the memorial becoming a satellite unit of the
National Parks System.
To date, the $5 million memorial project has raised more than $2.1
million: $1.1 million for development and $1 million for land. A
scale model of the proposed national memorial will be on display at
the event.
Parking
Parking is very limited at the ceremony site; carpooling is
strongly encouraged. Free bus service directly to the site will be
provided by the Bainbridge Island School District, with one bus
beginning at 9:25 a.m. from the Winslow ferry terminal for walk-on
passengers arriving on the 8:45 a.m. sailing from Seattle to
Bainbridge Island. A second bus will pick up park-and-ride drivers
at the lower parking lot of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church,
intersection of Wyatt Way NE and Sportsman Club Road, 1187 Wyatt
Way NE. Return service to the park-and-ride lot and the ferry
terminal begins at 11:15 p.m.
Limited parking for media vehicles is available on a first asked,
first reserved basis. Please contact Clarence Moriwaki at (206)
855-9038 or clarence@bainbridge.net to reserve a parking spot.
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