Bainbridge survivors of Japanese internment are dying, and memorial not yet built

Surviving members of the Bainbridge Island Japanese-American community sent off to internment camps during World War II are aging, and that has Clarence Moriwaki worried.

"Time is not our friend on this endeavor," said Moriwaki, who heads the committee behind the effort to build a memorial to those sent to the camps.

"Almost every week another one of our original community members passes away," he said.

There are fewer than three dozen alive today, he said. Someone who was an infant at the time would be 66 today.

Earlier this week, Congress voted to make the yet-to-be-built memorial on Eagle Harbor a national monument. Approved as part of the Wild Sky Wilderness Act, the Bainbridge Island memorial will be part of the Minidoka Internment National Monument in southern Idaho. Many of the Bainbridge Island Japanese were sent to Minidoka during the war.

While the Bainbridge Island Japanese community has ambitious plans for the monument, it doesn't have the money.

The memorial is expected to cost about $5 million, but backers have raised only $2.7 million.

"My hope is that one of the remaining survivors we want to honor will be there to cut the ribbon," Moriwaki said.

On March 30, 1942, some 227 Bainbridge Island men, women and children were herded onto the ferry Kehloken and taken to internment camps, where they would spend up to the next four years.

Those families were the first of nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans nationwide sent to internment camps under President Roosevelt's executive order, authorizing relocation and internment of anyone who might be seen as a threat to the U.S. war effort.

With only six days' notice, members of the Bainbridge Island Japanese community were forced to sell, store or make other arrangements for their possessions and property. Each was allowed to take only one suitcase.

The first phase of the monument to them was dedicated last year and includes a wooden boardwalk over wetlands, a small pavilion and a parking lot.

Phase II of the project is to build a 276-foot story wall, each foot representing a Japanese American living on Bainbridge Island when the internment began. (Another 49 Japanese Americans living on the island were not sent to internment camps, but were serving in the military, had moved to Eastern Washington to work on farms or had returned to Japan.) The committee has raised $300,000 for the wall, but needs another $300,000 before it can be built. The wall will have everyone's name on it, with a short family history.

The memorial site is at Eagle Harbor on the very road that the islanders walked when they boarded the ferry.

"It's a very rare thing to have the actual site where the event took place," said Moriwaki. "They're walking literally in the footsteps of history."

A third phase of the memorial will be the creation of an interpretive center, detailing the internment history of the Bainbridge Island Japanese residents.

The final phase is to build a 150-foot pier at the end of the story wall, representing the number of islanders who returned after the war.

"The most important thing is the recognition from the federal government that it honors this place as a place of remembrance to learn and to heal," said Moriwaki. "We want to learn from this and not let it happen again."

Speaking before Congress in the effort to make the memorial project part of the national-park system, Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Bainbridge Island, said, "This is long overdue. It finally presents a monument to a chapter of American history that should never be occasioned again. This will serve as a monument to all Americans of future generations that we should never let the power of fear overcome the promise of liberty."

Dr. Frank Kitamoto, president of the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community, said the memorial is an important way to honor residents who were forced from their homes during the war.

"The island was a very close-knit group," he said. "People overcame their fears, and that relates to what's going on now with Middle Eastern people. We can overcome fears and care for each other, which is the saving grace of our country."

Susan Gilmore: 206-464-2054 or sgilmore@seattletimes.com