Having been a Washington State native and resident for 40 years, I’ve written numerous times about the Executive Order 9066, which imprisoned 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry (most American citizens) during World War II. We had family friends that got caught up in all this, something that angered my father for the rest of his life.
A groundbreaking is taking place today for a memorial that commemorates the exile of 227 Japanese Americans from Bainbridge island. those people were removed on March 30, 1942, with just six days’ notice. ”
The memorial is projected to cost $9 million, with the site eventually having a pier and an interpretative center. Two point seven million has been raised thus far.
The groundbreaking launches construction of a 272-foot, stone-and-cedar “story wall” that will include the names of all 276 Japanese Americans who were forced off the island.
Read more about the memorial in the March 29, 2009 edition of Seattlepi.com
