Kay Sakai Nakao needed some help walking up to the microphone at a memorial ceremony commemorating Japanese American internment.
Nakao's 97 years old, after all.
She's lived on Bainbridge Island for 93 and a half of those years. It would have been all 97 years, except for the three years she and her family were forced to live in internment camps in the desert.
She was taken away 75 years ago on March 30, 1942.
"I remember feeling sad as the island got smaller and smaller," said Nakao, speaking at the 75th memorial ceremony on Bainbridge Island. "We didn't know where we were going, how long we'd be gone, or even we'd ever come back. It was a very sad feeling."
Governor Jay Inslee and Japanese Ambassador to the United States Kenichiro Sasae also spoke at the event.
"I want everyone to know that such a thing should not happen to any other group - ever. Not the way it happened to us," said Nakao. "After all, we were American citizens."
To commemorate the anniversary of Japanese American internment, KING 5's Lori Matsukawa examined one of the dark chapters in U.S. history as Japanese Americans from the Pacific Northwest share their stories of being "Prisoners in Their Own Land."
