BAINBRIDGE ISLAND, Wash. - Fumiko Hayashida holds onto her daughter Natalie like she did exactly 70 years ago, to the place where she and 276 Japanese-Americans were stripped of everything they knew.
"We hated to leave, we had to follow the rules," said Hayashida. "We left."
Hayashida is 100 years old, and each step takes an extraordinary amount of effort. She walks the entire length of the new memorial to see her name on the wall.
"I'm glad I'm still living. All my friends are gone," she said.
The memorial is 276 feet, a foot for each Japanese American Bainbridge Islander who lived here in the spring of 1942.
"I was going on 10, I think, I was the first one to have a birthday party in camp," remembers Sally Mishimora.
The ones who made it here today were the youngest rounded up by armed soldiers and taken away after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
"When we went on the trains there were lots of people overhead watching us," said Lucy Ota. "Today was so wonderful because as we walked by, they were clapping for us."
Their Bainbridge Island neighbors, like Earl Hansen - class of 1941, also remembers.
"That had to be a sad, sad moment. When you grow up with these kids they're part of your life," he said.
For nearly 70 years the photo of Hayashida, clutching Natalie as a baby, was a symbol of this painful moment in history. Those at Saturday’s memorial say this wall is a new chapter of peace and healing
"I'm slow, forgetful, but I'm happy," said Fumiko Hayashida.
The Bainbridge Island families were the first of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans removed from their homes on the West Coast. It's believed 90 of the 276 Bainbridge Islanders are alive today.
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