Kilmer Bill Signed Into Law by President Obama
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Representative Derek Kilmer (WA-06) applauded President Obama for signing into law his bill to officially recognize a new name for the Bainbridge Island memorial to Japanese Americans forced from their homes during World War II.
The bill was approved by the House and Senate before going to President Obama’s desk for his signature. It ensures the site is properly recognized as the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial. Kilmer is one of only seven House Freshman Democrats to get a bill signed into law this year. Only 25 bills authored by Democrats in the House of Representatives have been signed into law this year.
Bainbridge groups – including the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community and the Japanese American Exclusion Memorial Association – and residents pushed for the renaming of the National Historic Site, previously referenced in federal law as the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Memorial, to better reflect the history it commemorates. Kilmer worked closely with stakeholders and the National Park Service to clarify how to appropriately change the name and to ensure that the new name would be fully recognized in federal law. He spoke on the importance of passing this bill on the House floor two weeks ago.
“It was an honor to work with local folks in our region to see this bill become a law,” said Kilmer. “With their hard work we were able to get President Obama and Congress to properly recognize the unfair and unjust treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II. The moving and heartbreaking stories chronicled at the Bainbridge memorial, describing how families were rounded up and forcibly removed from their homes, remind us that we must always be vigilant in fighting prejudice and discrimination.”
The memorial is located at the former Eagledale ferry dock. It is the only national memorial to the internment of Japanese Americans not located at an incarceration site. In August, Representative Kilmer met with local Japanese American survivors of World War II internment camps at the Bainbridge Island memorial. Kilmer was joined at the site by Johnpaul Jones, the architect who designed the memorial and recently received a National Humanities Medal from President Obama.
Then-Representative Jay Inslee and Senator Maria Cantwell were instrumental in passing the 2008 law that designated the Memorial as a National Park Service site. They also helped secure a grant through the National Park Service’s Japanese American Confinement Site program that was used to build the wall to recognize the American citizens who were interned.
On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed an Executive Order allowing Japanese Americans to be excluded from important military areas. Bainbridge Island became the first place to be deemed an “exclusion zone” by the United States government and 227 Bainbridge Island Japanese Americans were forced to leave, boarding a ferry at Eagledale to begin a journey that would end in internment camps.
Residents of the island used the local paper, the Bainbridge Review, to stay in touch with those who were interned. The paper’s publishers, Walt and Milly Woodward, openly opposed the removal of Japanese Americans from Bainbridge Island, making them one of the only West Coast newspaper publishers to oppose the law.
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