I recently learned of Bainbridge Island’s Japanese American Exclusion Memorial, not far from the ferry terminal I have frequented these past fifteen summers visiting Port Ludlow and the surrounding area. When I visited the website to learn more, there was mention of a 100–year–old Western Red Cedar that was added to the National Registry of Historic Trees in 2003, the second to be named a historic tree on the West Coast. The cedar stood near the ferry dock as 276 Japanese Americans were forced to leave their homes on March 30, 1942 as a result of Executive Order 9066 signed by President Roosevelt. 276 people of all ages and stages, community members, neighbors, colleagues and friends, had six days notice to pack their belongings and leave. The cedar is considered a living witness and still stands today at the memorial site.
I walked the path of the memorial and thought of walking the path of Manzanar’s memorial on one of our visits to Mammoth Lakes in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of CA. Many of the 276 Bainbridge residents were sent to Manzanar where they suffered, stripped of their constitutional rights. Some never returned to Bainbridge and others rebuilt their lives. Some neighbors turned their backs and others watched over property and businesses.
I walked the path yesterday with a lump in my throat, knowing that omens of past horrors are present, that the hatred and fear of the “other” is still such a destructive force in our country as Asian Americans and all people of color, Jews, LGBTQ folxs and more are being attacked through policy and physically on our streets. I walked the path to the water, the wise cedar’s branches spread over the dock, reminding me too of the power of continuing to share legacies of shattering pain and stubborn hope, of trauma and regrowth.
My next visit on Bainbridge will be Bainbridge Gardens, originally established in 1908 by Zenhichi Harui, one of the Japanese Americans forced to leave his home during WWII. When Mr.Harui returned after internment, the gardens weren’t able to be restored. Years later, in 1989, one of Mr.Harui’s sons redeveloped the gardens. There stands Japanese red pines that his father planted years before, seeds carried over to his new home in America. Seeds of promise, sowing strength through the generations.
Reflections by Rabbi Kim 