The Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial

View of the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial wall heading towards the

NPS Photo

Quick Facts

Location:

Bainbridge Island, Washington

Significance:

Memorial

Designation:

National Historic Site

Amenities

5 listed

Benches/Seating, Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits, Information, Information Kiosk/Bulletin Board, Parking - Auto

The Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial honors the first Japanese Americans to be excluded, forcibly removed from their community, and incarcerated during World War II. 

After the attack on Pearl Harbor by imperial Japanese forces on December 7, 1941, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. This order authorized the establishment of military areas from which Japanese Americans may be excluded. On March 30, 1942, 227 Japanese Americans living on Bainbridge Island were gathered at the Eagledale Ferry Dock and forcibly removed from the Island. The Bainbridge Islanders were first incarcerated in Manzanar Relocation Center in California and later transferred to Minidoka Relocation Center in Idaho.

Once World War II ended, over half of the Bainbridge Island Japanese Americans returned to the island. They faced challenges both trauma and financial, but many from the Bainbridge Island community welcomed back their neighbors. 

At the memorial, visitors can reflect and learn about this site’s legacy of Nidoto Nai Yoni (Let It Not Happen Again).

The Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial is an outdoor exhibit commemorating the incarceration of Japanese Americans from Bainbridge Island in the state of Washington. It is a unit of the Minidoka National Historic Site in Idaho. The memorial wall located near the historic Eagledale ferry dock landing site, where the first of more than 110,000 Japanese—two-thirds of whom were American citizens—were banished from their West Coast homes and placed in incarceration centers during World War II. The memorial is a reminder—“Nidoto Nai Yoni” (Let it Not Happen Again)—of what happened on March 30, 1942. Built of old-growth red cedar, granite and basalt, the wall honors the names of all 276 Japanese and Japanese Americans who were exiled from Bainbridge Island by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 and Civilian Exclusion Order No. 1.