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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

Plan for Bainbridge memorial gains momentum

Washington state Democrats back Inslee's bill

14 September 2006

This week, support grew for U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee's effort to include a Bainbridge-Island memorial for Japanese Americans interned during World War II in the national park system.

Eight members of Congress added their names to Inslee's Bainbridge Island National Monument Act, H.R. 5817. They include all Washington state Democrats - U.S. Reps. Norm Dicks, Jim McDermott, Rick Larsen, Brian Baird and Adam Smith - as well as U.S. Reps. Doris O. Matsui, Jim Moran and Mike Honda, chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.

"Eagledale Ferry Dock is a key site that brings to life a chapter of American history that we should not and cannot forget," said Inslee, a member of the House Resources Committee who sent a letter on Friday urging the panel's chairman, U.S. Rep. Richard Pombo, to allow a vote on the bill. "Historic significance is reason enough to include it in our national park system. Support from local lawmakers and congressional leaders makes our case even stronger."

In July, Inslee and U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson filed legislation that would codify into law the results of a Department of the Interior study released this May by making a memorial at the former Eagledale Ferry Dock a satellite site of the Minidoka Internment National Monument in Jerome County, Idaho.

Inslee, who led efforts in the House to commission and fund the Interior Department study and called for its prompt completion this March, hails from Bainbridge Island, Wash.; Simpson's district includes the monument in Idaho, one of two U.S. internment camps that now have national-park designation.

Located on Bainbridge Island, the now defunct Eagledale Ferry Dock was the site from which the first 227 Japanese Americans in the nation were forcibly removed from their homes and communities under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 and Civilian Exclusion Order No. 1. From Bainbridge Island, they were taken to the Manzanar Relocation Center in California. In 1943, they were transferred to the Minidoka Relocation Center.

This May, several years of fundraising and planning culminated in the groundbreaking and first phase of construction of a memorial at the former Eagledale Ferry Dock. Called Nidoto Nai Yoni, or "let it not happen again," $2 million of the $5 million project has been raised so far, with funding coming from private donors and the state of Washington.