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Inslee listens to a constituent.

Montage of Wing Point in Bainbridge Island and the Edmonds Ferry.

Jay Inslee: Washington's 1st Congressional District

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Japanese American memorial

House approves park designation for historic Bainbridge site

6 February 2007

The House unanimously passed a bill authored by U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) that would give national park status to the site on Bainbridge Island, Wash., from which the first Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps during World War II.

"Congress took a strong stand today by making the Nidoto Nai Yoni Memorial part of our national heritage - let it not happen again," said Inslee, who lives on Bainbridge Island and represents its residents in Congress.

"This victory has been a long time coming," he continued. "I've been pushing this for years, but more importantly, my constituents - survivors, their families and friends - have been waiting for decades."

On March 30, 1942, 227 Japanese-American residents on Bainbridge Island were forcibly removed from their homes under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 and Civilian Exclusion Order No. 1. They were assembled at the now defunct Eagledale Ferry Dock on the island near Seattle and transported to the Manzanar Relocation Center in California. In 1943, most were transferred to the Minidoka Relocation Center in Idaho, and were among the last internees to return home at the conclusion of the war.

Inslee's bill, the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Monument Act, H.R. 161, would make the former Eagledale Ferry Dock and a memorial currently being constructed there a satellite site of the Minidoka Internment National Monument in Jerome County, Idaho. The legislation is cosponsored by U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), whose district includes the existing monument in Idaho, one of two U.S. internment camps that now has national-park designation. They introduced the first version of their bill in July 2006 and re-filed it in the House on the first day of the 110th Congress, Jan. 4, 2007.

"I applaud Congressman Inslee for his tireless efforts to see this legislation through, and I am proud to cosponsor this bill," said Simpson. "It's important to recognize our history and learn from our past successes and failures as a nation. It is also entirely appropriate that we establish this memorial and recognize the story of those Americans who were interned during World War II."

Starting three years ago, Inslee led efforts in the House to commission and fund an Interior Department study on the feasibility of including the site in the national park system. His bill codifies into law recommendations made by Interior based on the study, which were released in May 2006.

The bill was boosted last September when the House Resources Committee heard testimony from a Bainbridge internment camp survivor, Fumiko Hayashida. Inslee invited Hayashida, 95, to the nation's capital to speak on behalf of his bill because she is the oldest living island resident taken to internment camps in March of 1942.

"The Trust for Public Land congratulates Congressman Inslee and the City of Bainbridge Island on House passage of H.R. 161," said Alan Front, said Roger Hoesterey, Vice President and Northwest & Rocky Mountain Regional Director at The Trust for Public Land (TPL). "TPL is proud to have worked in partnership with the city and Washington's congressional delegation to protect this vital historic landscape as a memorial for Japanese Americans interned during World War II. Congressman Inslee and his colleagues in the delegation have supported the Bainbridge Island memorial from the start, and we appreciate their commitment to saving and interpreting this resonant place."

The bill also must win approval in the Senate before it can go to the president for signature. A companion measure was introduced in that chamber during the last Congress by U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.).

"On February 19, I'll meet survivors and community members on Bainbridge to mark the 65th anniversary of Executive Order 9066, see firsthand progress on the memorial and provide an update on my bill," added Inslee. "I hope I'll have good news to report about movement on the legislation in the Senate too."