<Begin Segment 27>

Female voice: If we're going to make this fundraising film... can you talk about how the memorial has brought together people on Bainbridge Island and in what ways and, I don't know, what can we talk about that we can celebrate about the memorial project?

FK: I think it's real easy to think of this memorial project being something for, to help Americans of Japanese descent heal, and that it's specifically for them. But it isn't; it's for everybody. It always amazes me when we have projects here on the island, in the Japanese American community, how much we're supported by the rest of the community. I remember being at a teriyaki dinner, and we had four hundred people there. And this guy from Los Angeles came and said, "This is amazing." He said, "You know, when we have these dinners in Los Angeles," he said, "we have a lot of people there, but they're almost all Japanese." He said, "You have... everybody here at this dinner is Caucasian." And I said, "Yeah, that's true." Of course, I didn't have the heart to tell him all the Japanese people were in the kitchen. [Laughs] But, it's true, you know, none of our programs would be successful unless we're supported by the whole island. I mean, the idea of the memorial was not something that we brought up, it was brought up by the Inner Faith Council. And, and they're the ones that told us... members of the Inner Faith Council are the ones that told us that this should be treated as sacred ground. It was, one of the council members had been to a concentration camp area in Arkansas and asked the Native American person there -- 'cause it was on a reservation -- "How come you haven't done anything on this land since the camp was torn down?" And this Native American guy said, "Oh, we'll never touch this place. This is sacred ground." So she came back and said, "Well, you know, this place where you guys left from is sacred ground." And it's... it amazes me, 'cause I remember that first ceremony we had there where all the crows were crowing away and making all this noise and stuff. And they started reading the names of the people that were, were forced off the island. And as soon as they started reading the names, the crows stopped crowing, stopped making noise. And later on this Native American woman came up to us and said, "You know, when you start talking about your ancestors, the ravens stop speaking." And it just made the hair on the back of my neck stand up when she said that, 'cause... so this is something that is for all our children, for kids of Japanese descent because it helps then with identity, it helps them know who they are. But it's also the hopes and the possibilities of what can be, that we do have a choice. Reacting in violence or war or, or spite or all those things, or going beyond fear and reacting in a different way. I mean, that's what heroes are, right? Heroes are people that can get beyond their own fears and think of the other person. And that's who we need in this world is more heroes.

Female voice: Can you tell us who the Inner Faith Council is, for the people who don't know?

FK: Oh, sure. Inner Faith Council is, is made up of churches, synagogues, in the Bainbridge and North Kitsap area where they... I think they meet once a month and they send representatives from their churches to get together and explore things of faith that they can do in common. And that's why we think it's so significant, 'cause they, you know, they came to us and said, "Hey, you should do something out there." 'Course, I don't know if they had in mind what we decided to do, but... but they've been very supportive. And every year they send us a contribution for the memorial, and they've helped us with arrangements of meals and things when we have people come like the timber framers and so forth.

<End Segment 27> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.