The Day of Remembrance was one to remember.
The annual stewardship event brought more than 100 volunteers from the island, Seattle and beyond to tidy up the grounds of the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial at Pritchard Park. It marked the 82-year anniversary of federal Executive Order 9066, which on Feb. 19, 1942, authorized the wartime incarceration of citizens of Japanese ancestry.
The stewardship event – a prelude to the March 30 Exclusion Day observance – was hosted by the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial Association, and co-sponsored by the Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation and Bainbridge Island Metro Park & Recreation District.
Ellen Sato Faust, BIJAEMA executive director, thanked all for their participation.
“Young and old, rain or shine, volunteers play a crucial role in furthering our mission and ensuring that the stories and experience of those affected by the Exclusion are remembered and honored,” Faust said. “The Japanese American Exclusion Memorial stands as a testament to the resilience and strength of the community, and your involvement is a vital part of that narrative.”
The event was filmed by a visiting team from the Los Angeles bureau of NHK Japan (public) Broadcasting for an upcoming program. Akira Saheki, bureau chief, and producer Ai Jinguji also interviewed exclusion survivors, and will return for the March 30 Exclusion Day observance.
“We were researching what to film on the Day of Remembrance, and I heard that the specific situation in wartime on this island was quite unique, and a lesson to learn from,” Saheki said.
“It’s great that you have this beautiful memorial, and that it’s been kept clean and nice with the cooperation of all the Nikkei people and islanders working together,” Saheki said. “It’s wonderful to hear these kinds of stories, how people have stuck together to keep these lessons alive.”
Bainbridge Island’s Japanese-Americans were the first of 120,000 on the West Coast to be incarcerated, two-thirds of them American citizens. But they were also welcomed back to the community several years later with the support of the Bainbridge Island Review newspaper, as chronicled in Milly Woodward’s “In Defense of Our Neighbors” (2008).
The Exclusion Memorial was dedicated in 2004 in Pritchard Park, and is now part of the National Park Service system. The Parks & Trails Foundation and Bainbridge Island Park District support BIJAEMA and the memorial site’s stewardship through the Exclusion Day event.
“It’s always moving to see the community come together on this day,” said Mary Meier, Parks & Trails Foundation executive director, “honoring all that the Exclusion Memorial represents, here and in the world.”
Producer Ai Jinguji said NHK Japan filmed Day of Remembrance events in Seattle two years ago, and learned then of the richly documented Bainbridge Island story through programming by the Seattle Symphony. That inspired the visit to Bainbridge Island this week, where they interviewed exclusion survivor Lilly Kitamoto Kodama, Hiroshi Hayashida, Tomi Egashira and Hisa Matsudaira.
“They’re remarkable storytellers and historians,” Jinguji said, citing Kitamoto, age 89. “She is able to connect her experience to recent conflicts and recent issues with misinformation. That’s a remarkable thing to do at her age, I think. She wants to do the right thing, ‘Nidoto Nai Yoni’ (Let it not happen again). She cannot take history just repeating, and that’s why she continues telling the story, and that inspires me.
“I sometimes think that what I’m doing is not good enough. But I believe remembrance is activism. If I remember this day every year, I can contribute something.”
