BAINBRIDGE ISLAND, Wash. — As tourist season heats up in western Washington, Bainbridge Island is giving visitors a new way to experience its Japanese American Exclusion Memorial.
The memorial winds through a wooded park down to the Eagledale ferry dock where the first of more than 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans were forced into internment camps in 1942.
Normally a place of peace and quiet, sound will be part of the experience for the first time through an audio tour full of stories from people who lived through the dark moment in our history.
"We have this treasure trove of community members who are on tape so that we can hear their voices and I was like we need to take advantage of this somehow," said Christine Mueller.
Mueller is the former Executive Director of Visit Bainbridge Island and kicked off the project last year, first applying for a $10,000 tourism and marketing grant through the Port of Seattle.
Using those funds plus additional funds from the community, the team was able to partner with the National Parks Service to build the audio tour into their app.
"What it was like and how they felt and what they experienced, what the weather was like and where they walked," Mueller said.
But getting the story told accurately was challenging as Mueller and her team combed through hours of audio.
"For people to hear their stories firsthand is so important because they’re no longer here to tell it," said Lilly Kodama who was just seven years old at the time of the exclusion 81 years ago.
Kodama is one of less than 10 survivors that still live on the island, their stories slowly lost to the generation.. until now.
"One day, I wandered off far away from the barricades and I saw a creek," Kodama said. "I got excited and took off my shoes, I was all by myself and I took off my shoes to wade in the creek and I heard something - there was a guard tower and a soldier up there and he was pointing a gun, a rifle down at me."
Up until that moment, Kodama said she had been protected by her mother and thought of the exclusion as a vacation and time spent with family and friends.
She said the audio tour will help listeners never forget and that history could repeat itself.
"That it would be real," Kodama said. "It's not somebody telling the story second or third hand."
Since the audio tour is on an app, it's not just for visitors, but for people all over the world to hear stories from just some of the 227 Japanese Americans who were once forced from their homes on Bainbridge Island in Washington.
"That's a living legacy that will continue to give to the community," Mueller said.
Despite the new audio experience, Visit Bainbridge Island is asking visitors to bring headphones or earbuds to help keep the quiet and reflective nature of the memorial.