The exclusion of Bainbridge Island’s Japanese-American citizens during World War II was one of the community’s greatest tragedies.

The return of so many of those people, and their resuming their place on the island, was one of the community’s greatest triumphs.

Proponents of a memorial to those events want to tell the whole story.

“The internment camps were part of the story, but only part,” said memorial committee member Deborah Hickey. “There are also those islanders who moved east of the mountains rather than be interned, and there is the healing story of people returning and being welcomed home.”

The group, calling itself the Bainbridge Island WWII Nikkei Exclusion Memorial Committee, has released conceptual plans for a commemorative memorial on the road-end at Taylor Avenue on the south shore of Eagle Harbor, where 227 islanders boarded a ferry on March 30, 1942, to be taken to Manzanar, in California’s Mojave Desert.

The centerpiece of the plans, done by Seattle architect John Paul Jones, is a long, narrow walkway towards Eagle Harbor, recreating the walk taken by those islanders who left their homes in 1942.

“You will be walking literally on the same path, in their footsteps,” said committee member Clarence Moriwaki.

While the ground slopes from Eagle Harbor Drive towards the water, the plan calls for lowering the grade at the high end, creating a nearly level walkway over 300 feet long. The upper and and the west side of the area would be lined by a “story wall,” which would contain the names of the 227 island evacuees and tell other aspects of the story.

“This is still very conceptual,” Hickey said. “We are certain we want the names, but the rest is not yet decided.”

The harbor end will be a recreated dock on the spot of the former Eagledale ferry dock, where the evacuees last saw Bainbridge Island.

The east side of the road-end will have a contemplative seating area, a kiosk with additional information, a pathway through the woods to return from the dock, parking areas and a new access road to the beach.

The plan envisions three sculptural representations of different aspects of the experience.

Representing the excluded families will be a sculpture on the dock of a family of evacuees looking back.

Depicting the forced nature of the journey will be sculpted rock abstracts representing the military cordon the families passed through on their way to the ferry at the end of the walkway.

“That was a very memorable aspect of their experience,” said Moriwaki. “Some of them say that was what made you feel you had done something wrong.”

Depicting the widespread support within the community for the evacuees will be a sculpture near the upper end of the walkway of a figure waving goodbye.

“I think it would be appropriate if that figure was Walt Woodward,” said Moriwaki, referring to the Review’s former editor and publisher who supported the Japanese-American community during its exile.

A group effort

Jones’ work embodies ideas generated over a period of two years or more by the organizing group, which includes both representatives from the Interfaith Council and from the Japanese-American community.

Committee members in addition to Hickey and Moriwaki are Frank Kitamoto and Gerald Nakata, both of whom were interned, Junkoh Harui, whose family moved to Moses Lake rather than go to Manzanar, Mary Woodward, Walt’s daughter, Joseph Tiernan of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church and Dave Berfield from Seabold United Methodist Church.

During a series of meetings, the Japanese-American representatives related their memories and experiences, and Jones tried to embody those feelings in his work, Hickey said.

“We wanted the memorial to reflect their experience, not what the Anglo community thought their experience was,” Hickey said.

The committee plans a memorial ceremony on March 30, the 60th anniversary of the exclusion, which will be something of a kickoff to a campaign to bring the concept into reality, Hickey said.

The plan has an array of hurdles to overcome. The marina to the west uses an access road off of Taylor, which would be cut off by the project. The design calls for the marina access road to be moved farther south, much closer to Eagle Harbor Drive, but no formal discussions have taken place with marina owner Darrell McNabb, Moriwaki said.

The road-end is bounded to the east by the Wyckoff superfund property, now owned by a court-supervised trust. The trust directs that the land be sold to help defray costs of cleaning up the former creosote operation. Efforts are under way to put the property into public ownership, but nothing has yet been finalized.

And there is the matter of money, both for potentially purchasing all or a portion of the Wyckoff land and to build the memorial itself. The National Park Service has expressed interest in the site, and federal funding is being explored, but again with no firm results.

“We were in a Catch-22 situation,” Moriwaki said. “We couldn’t really do a final design until we knew what property we would have to work with, but when we started talking about the property, people would ask what we had in mind.”

The resolution of that impasse, he said, came from the 442d Infantry Division, the all-Japanese division in which a number of young islanders served with conspicuous distinction during World War II while their families were being interned.

“Their slogan was ‘go for broke’” Moriwaki said. “And that is what we’re doing.”