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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

Hearing set for Inslee's Bainbridge memorial bill

Committee vote likely to follow

20 September 2006

The House Resources Committee announced it will hold hearings on a dozen bills, including one authored by panel member U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) that would designate a memorial for Japanese Americans interned during World War II as a national park.

Located at the former Eagledale Ferry Dock in Bainbridge Island, Wash., the memorial marks the site from which the first Japanese Americans in the nation were sent to internment camps in 1942 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 and Civilian Exclusion Order No. 1. These 227 Bainbridge residents initially were taken to the Manzanar Relocation Center in California and then transferred to the Minidoka Relocation Center in 1943.

"Our community has moved mountains to make the memorial a reality and Congress is taking notice," said Inslee, who lives on the island just west of Seattle and won nine new supporters of his bill since last week. "We still have hard work ahead of us to get park designation, but our chances improve as more members learn the story of this historic site."

On July 17, Inslee filed his Bainbridge Island National Monument Act, H.R. 5817, with U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho). It would codify into law the results of an Interior Department study released this May by making the Bainbridge location a satellite site of the Minidoka Internment National Monument, which is in Simpson's congressional district. Last Friday, U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) introduced the same legislation in the Senate.

After the House Resources Committee hearing on Inslee's legislation, the bill likely will be slated for additional scrutiny and a vote by the panel during a session scheduled for the last week of September. The panel also could release the bill in its current form for consideration on the House floor.