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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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Pritchard Park

Historic icon testifies before Congress

Internment camp survivor urges passage of Inslee Bainbridge Island memorial

28 September 2006

The House Resources Committee often hears testimony from scientists, government officials and corporate executives. Today it heard from a legend.

Fumiko Hayashida, who was forced from her home and community on Bainbridge Island, Wash. in March 1942 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 and Civilian Exclusion Order No. 1, today appeared before the panel to urge passage of legislation that would include in the national park system the site from which she and 226 other island residents were taken to Manzanar Relocation Center. At 95, she is the oldest survivor of the first group of Japanese Americans taken to internment camps during World War II.

During her testimony, the stoic and soft-spoken woman called for immediate action on the Bainbridge Island National Monument Act, H.R. 5817, sponsored by U.S. Reps. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) and Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), “I hope to live long enough to see the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Memorial earn the honor and recognition from our federal government and become a unit of the National Parks Service. Please act quickly so that Americans can learn from and remember the meaning of the memorial’s name: “Nidoto Nai Yoni – Let it not happen again.”

At the hearing, Inslee thanked Hayashida for making the trip from Seattle to Washington, D.C. to describe her experiences and explain the importance of passing the legislation immediately. He said, “This is a story that needs to resonate throughout the decades. We need to ensure the power of fear never again overcomes the promise of liberty.”

In July, Inslee and 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 include the site in the national park system, 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.