Join the Bainbridge Island City Council Meeting, as the Council moves to approve the proclamation acknowledging March 30th, 2022 as “Nidoto Nai Yoni – Let It Not Happen Again” Day.

CITY COUNCIL REGULAR BUSINESS MEETING
TUESDAY, MARCH 08, 2022
REMOTE MEETING ON ZOOM
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PROCLAMATION

PROCLAMATION by the City Council of the City of Bainbridge Island, Washington,
declaring March 30, 2022 as “Nidoto Nai Yoni – Let It Not Happen Again Day” marking 80 years of
healing.

WHEREAS, eighty years ago, on February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive
Order No. 9066, which authorized the removal of anyone of Japanese American ancestry from the
entire west coast of the United States; and

WHEREAS, the first exclusion area designated was Bainbridge Island; and

WHEREAS, on March 24 of that year, the Bainbridge Island Japanese American community were
notified that they would be forced from their homes in 6 days to be sent to an unknown
destination; and

WHEREAS, on March 30, 1942, 227 Bainbridge Islanders of Japanese American descent were
herded aboard the Ferry KEHLOKEN, on their way to concentration camps in California and
ultimately, in Minidoka, Idaho; and

WHEREAS, on that day 227 of our friends and neighbors were the first of thousands of Japanese
Americans forced to abandon their homes and belongings and to live under guard at camps
scattered throughout the United States due to the baseless racist fears that they were not loyal first
and foremost to the United States of America; and

WHEREAS, under a nation-wide fog of fear, war hysteria, and prejudice, our community stood by
their Japanese American friends and neighbors, notably Bainbridge Review publishers Walt and
Milly Woodward who consistently opposed the unconstitutional actions of our government; and

WHEREAS, after World War II, over half of the exiled Islanders returned to Bainbridge Island where
they were welcomed and resumed their roles as valued members of the Bainbridge Island
Community; and

WHEREAS, the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community and other concerned residents
decided to create a memorial to the exclusion experience on Bainbridge Island, and

WHEREAS, the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial is a National Park Service
satellite site of the Minidoka, Idaho National Historic Site and is built on the very road where 227
men, women, and children took their last steps of freedom; and

WHEREAS, the mission of the Japanese American Exclusion Memorial is “Nidoto-Nai Yoni – Let It
Not Happen Again” which serves as both and aspiration and a call to action; and

WHEREAS, much like post-Pearl Harbor, today we live in an atmosphere of manufactured fear and
hysteria, creating a toxic cloud of anti-Asian bigotry, prejudice, assault and death, and feeding the
racial strife that daily threatens marginalized communities of color and sexual orientation, thus
threatening liberty and justice for all; and

WHEREAS, we who live on Bainbridge Island are called to speak to this issue. We have lived with
the scars of the Japanese American Exclusion for many years, we have not forgotten, and we insist
that this history not repeat itself; and

WHEREAS, March 30, 2022 marks the 80th Anniversary of the forced removal and exclusion of
Japanese Americans from Bainbridge Island, and survivors and speakers, including Governor Jay
Inslee, will commemorate 80 years of healing at the Exclusion Memorial on March 30.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Joe Deets, Mayor of the City of Bainbridge Island, on behalf of the
City Council, do hereby proclaim March 30, 2022 as
“Nidoto Nai Yoni – Let It Not Happen Again Day”
in the City of Bainbridge Island and urge all Islanders to join us in this special observance.

DATED this 8th day of March, 2022