HEALING LAND, HEALING COMMUNITY
March 30, 2022 marks the 80th anniversary of the forced exclusion of Bainbridge Island’s Japanese Americans for wartime incarceration.
To honor this milestone, the Bainbridge Island Parks Foundation and Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial Association are partnering on stewardship projects and a documentary film at the memorial site and Pritchard Park.
Two environmental restoration events launch the project.
On Feb. 19, the Parks Foundation and BIJAEMA co-sponsor a Volunteer Work Day on the annual Day of Remembrance for Executive Order 9066, which authorized the wartime exclusion. The Bainbridge community is invited to refresh and replant the Exclusion Memorial grounds and surrounding park. Pre-register for that event here.
From March 7-11, a team from EarthCorps of Seattle will perform intensive restoration at the park. The group will focus on invasive ivy that swaths upland areas of the 50-acre park, and other restoration needs.
These restoration activities lead in to the 80th year observance at the Exclusion Memorial, on March 30, 2022. The Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community is now planning those activities, with details to be announced soon.
Local filmmaker Katie Jennings has been selected for the new documentary about the Exclusion Memorial.
Jennings’ film will follow the creation and installation of dramatic new interpretive figures at the memorial’s Departure Deck. The large, cut-metal “negative silhouettes” will depict armed soldiers and departing islanders, powerfully evoking the day of exclusion on March 30, 1942.
Jennings visits the memorial often, and “each time, I’m humbled by the strength that island residents showed in the face of such injustice,” she said.
“I want the film to reach people who can’t come to Bainbridge to experience the monument and the wonderful people involved in its creation,” Jennings said. “I hope the film will add layers of meaning for new audiences as well as those already familiar with the story.”
The video will help the BIJAEMA organization fundraise for a visitor and interpretive center, board president Val Tollefson said, and will be an important historical document.
“I think it’s absolutely wonderful,” Tollefsen said. “The Seattle organization Densho has made its reason for existence preserving the stories of Japanese Americans who were incarcerated during World War II, and this is an important part of that work.
“Being able to add this film to the historical archive is just invaluable.”
