Regardless of how one may think politically or philosophically about the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II, it happened, and there are valuable lessons to be learned simply by understanding the experience of those who were subjected to leaving their homes behind to live in a prison-like atmosphere for a few years.

Few Bainbridge Island residents who were interned are still alive, so a bearing-witness type of program such as the Global Source Education’s “Only What We Can Carry” is extremely valuable, especially when its primary focus is the teachers and students in our elementary and secondary schools.

The program recently sent a delegation to the former Manzanar War Relocation Center in Northern California consisting of educators who were paired with current and former island residents sent in 1942 to Manzanar, which is now a National Historic Site. Remarkably, the entourage include 100-year-old Fumiko Hayashida, who is the oldest surviving islander to have been forceably moved there.

With the Bainbridge Island Historic Museum serving as the lead agency for several other island organizations involved in sponsoring the four-day trip, one of the goals was to document the experience. But the most important part of the trip involved the learning experience enjoyed by the Woodward Middle School educators who took the journey.

By personally experiencing the environment with islanders who lived through it, the goal of the program is for each of the educators to acquire a new voice in order to bestow a very personal Bainbridge story to their students for the purpose of learning global lessons.

This is only one aspect of the experience, of course. What happened on Bainbridge before and after the event is also an important part of the story, and needs to be imparted so students will understand the breadth of the event’s local effect.