It was a terrible feeling to wake up in mid-July 2024 and read that the statue of Sadako Sasaki in Seattle’s tiny Peace Park had been mutilated. Created by artist Darryl Smith, the Sadako statue was installed in 1990 by Quaker activist Floyd Schmoe, who successfully lobbied the City of Seattle to create a tiny park close to the University of Washington and across the street from the Quaker Friends Meeting House. The statue had been vandalized once before in 1993 and successfully restored.
Schmoe’s grandson Avery Lockett used to visit the statue regularly as a way to feel a connection with his grandfather. It was Avery who first noticed and reported the theft. The motives for the statue’s theft are unknown, but some speculate that the statue was stolen—cut off at the ankles—for scrap metal value. For a relatively small statue, the theft made local, national, and international news.
For me, something hurt about this statue’s mutilation. The statue was life-sized—so, child-sized. She symbolized a commitment to peace, a starkly ironic contrast to the presence of nuclear Trident submarines just a ferry’s ride from Seattle away in Bremerton. Several sources noted that this was the only statue in Seattle’s municipal art collection which was dedicated to a woman. But because she was a realistic statue, it hurt that even the figure of her body could not remain intact. And because so many of us are bearing witness to the destruction and mutilation of children in Gaza, the mutilation feels especially raw.
Chiyo Sanada, a local Japanese calligrapher and Hiroshima native, felt similarly when she heard about the statue’s theft—“heartbroken, of course,” she told me over the phone. She moved from Japan twenty-four years ago, and had looked at Seattle’s Sadako statue almost as a friend, a symbol of home. After she heard about the theft she visited the statue’s remains. “I kept rubbing her ankle,” she said. “I told her, I’m so sorry.” Nevertheless, Sadako’s name is a symbol of hope for her, she said. “I hope to see her again,” she added.
Yet another layer emerged for me, though—as a Japanese American with close family ties to the city of Hiroshima and its own Peace Park, this mutilation felt like a desecration. As a young Nikkei girl growing up in a predominantly White city in Northern California, Sadako’s name was one I heard in my own family (one of my aunts has her name), and her story was one of the only stories about Japanese girls that I knew of in childhood.
I learned how to fold an origami crane for the first time during my family trip to Japan in 1981, when I was about 7 years old—close to Sadako’s age when she passed away. And my Nisei father’s family is from Hiroshima; we are especially proud that my father’s cousin Ishimaru Katsuzo was the sculptor for the cenotaph in Peace Park.
In my Uncle Hiroshi Kashiwagi’s first memoir Swimming in the American, he tells the story of our relatives’ experience:
Auntie Shimeno [Tamiko’s great-auntie] related their experience during the atomic blast. Their house had been close to the epicenter. They had been downstairs—herself, Takeshi who was six and Katsuzo who was two—grinding soybeans, when the blast came. The second floor fell on them; they saw a red flash; they were saved because the roof had fallen on them; they were unhurt but trapped. Takeshi managed to crawl out and go for help. They were dug out. That first night they set up four poles and slept under mosquito netting. Her husband, an engineer, was out of the city working as a supervisor building Zero fighter planes. So he escaped the bomb. Then four or five days later they moved to the country so they escaped the radiation from the black rain that came a week after the blast….
[My wife] Sadako and I talked about it and decided our responsibility would be to tell others, as many as we can, those who can’t come to Hiroshima and see for themselves, and bring the message of the Hiroshima Memorial Park and its monument: ‘Sleep in peace, the mistake will not be repeated.’
So it feels especially important for me to raise awareness about the efforts towards healing and restoration. Over email, I spoke separately with Stan Shikuma of Tsuru for Solidarity and Seattle JACL, as well as Jonathan Betz-Zall of the Quaker Friends Committee, about the community healing ceremony that they facilitated on August 2nd, 2024 and their efforts looking forward.
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Tamiko Nimura (TN): What was your reaction when you first heard about the statue’s theft?
Stan Shikuma (SS): I first heard about the mutilation and theft of the Sadako Statue from an article in The Seattle Times that appeared a day or two after the initial police report was filed. I was shocked and angry when I first heard the news. I went down to the site to see it for myself and was just heartbroken to see only the feet and ankles remained where the statue had once stood. It was so sad standing there; I felt like a good friend had just died.
Jonathan Betz-Zall (JBZ): I felt very badly for the people who valued it so highly as a symbol of the continuing search for peace and reconciliation. It had been vandalized in the past; when I recalled the anguished reaction of many in the Japanese American community at that time, I vowed to do what I could to help them with healing and recovery.
TN: Can you talk about the community(-ies’) efforts that mobilized to do a healing ceremony and a campaign to replace the statue? What did it take to pull together a ceremony, and what was your impression of its impact on those present?
SS: As soon as I heard the news, I posted the article on my Facebook page and forwarded it by email to community friends and organizations I knew —initially to From Hiroshima to Hope, Tsuru for Solidarity, Seattle Chapter JACL.
Many people responded with horror and sadness and quite a few asked what we could do. Through my work with the Tule Lake Pilgrimage and Tsuru for Solidarity, I knew that this terrible act was a major community trauma and that people were at a loss for how to express this. There was a strong urge to restore the statue, but I felt we also needed a way to grieve the loss. So I suggested we hold a community healing ceremony to communally acknowledge the loss, express our sorrow, raise the theft in the public eye (media and politicians), and launch a restoration action campaign.
By this time, we had also been connected to Jonathan Betz-Zall of the University Friends Meeting. With his help, UFM and Tsuru for Solidarity members took the lead in organizing the Sadako Statue Healing Ceremony on August 2. Other organizations that supported and participated in the Ceremony included: Seattle Chapter JACL, From Hiroshima to Hope, Seattle Betsuin Buddhist Temple, Hiroshima Club, Veterans for Peace, Japanese Cultural & Community Center of Washington, Minidoka Pilgrimage Planning Committee, and several other groups and individuals.
For the Ceremony, we wanted to hang a thousand tsuru around Sadako’s feet and ankles (we actually ended up with several thousand), so I bought some garden trellis frames for that purpose. We contacted Rev. Kusunoki of Seattle Betsuin who readily agreed to offer a blessing and lead a chant/sutra, which became a core element of our Ceremony. We gathered at the UFM Hall across the street, then held a solemn procession from the Hall to the Statue site. I gave a few words of welcome and explanation of why we were gathered and how we wanted to honor Sadako—not with feelings of anger or blame, but to express our grief and sorrow at our loss and to remember Sadako’s legacy of peace, hope, and life. Rev Kusunoki and Rev Nakagaki then offered a prayer and led a chant. An open mic was held where representatives from UFM, JACL, FHTH spoke as well as individuals like Chiyo Sanada (a calligrapher, artist, and Hiroshima native) and Avery Lockett (great-great-grandson of Floyd Schmoe, who had donated funds and organized efforts to erect the statue).
Though the crowd was relatively small (about 50), we felt it was pretty good for a Friday morning event with less than a week’s notice. I felt everyone who participated felt moved and that we achieved our goal of having a healing event. I also believe people were motivated to continue on with efforts at restoration of the statue, and we have since held our first organizing meeting for that purpose.
TN: How can people contribute to the campaign, how much is needed, and where are efforts needed the most? What is the hoped-for timeline of raising funds?
SS: We are now in the process of planning for the Restoration (Recovery and Repair OR Replacement) of the Sadako Statue. Funds will be needed, of course, but we don’t really have a budget yet, so we are not really pushing for donations just yet. That said, people have already donated over $26,000 to the Sadako Statue Restoration Fund (not the official name —yet). [As of late September 2024, the fund has reached $40,000.] We will be seeking community input and suggestions/desires on what we want to see happen at the Seattle Peace Park where the statue is located. Some suggestions thus far are: exact replica replacement statue, similar statue but in a different material (to make it less likely it will be stolen again), various security ideas (fencing, security cameras, lighting, etc), interpretive panels placed around/nearby the statue, keep the feet and ankles as a reminder of the original statue, and more.
Clearly, the Sadako Statue held—and continues to hold—great meaning for many people across different communities in Seattle: University Friends Meeting, Japanese and Japanese Americans, the Peace Community, University District neighborhood, among others. The values embodied in the statue (e.g. peace, hope, optimism, childhood innocence, friendship, justice) resonate with many people across cultures and communities. We want to capture and retain that spirit of unity and community in whatever we do going forward, so we will promote consultation and seek input across a broad spectrum of Seattle. So our process of Research, Outreach, Planning, Fundraising, Construction/Reconstruction is in the beginning stages.
JBZ: The campaign is still being planned, but University Friends Meeting has set up a dedicated account to receive any donated funds. These will be spent only on restoring the statue. A new planning committee has just begun to meet to discern the wishes of the local Japanese American community as to the form any restoration should take. A lot of attention is being given to making the new monument much more difficult to attack while preserving the humility and accessibility of the original. Members of the committee are now reaching out more broadly within the Japanese American community to ensure consideration of the entire community's interests. Meanwhile financial contributions may be sent to University Friends Meeting, 4001 9th Ave NE, Seattle WA 98105 USA. They should be marked “for Sadako.”
TN: Anything else you’d like to add?
SS: We appreciate the attention and care shown by people across Seattle, the US, and Japan. We want to include everyone in the project and hope all will continue to follow our progress and support our efforts.
JBZ: People who wish to help with planning and execution of the restoration may write to an email address: sadakocomehome@aol.com to be put on a mailing list for further opportunities. We hope to have a detailed plan and fundraising goals set within a few months.
In addition to all the sources listed here, the author would like to thank Linda Ando for her assistance with the writing of this story.
Other sources:
- Seattle Times
- Japan Times
- Seattle Japanese Garden
- HistoryLink.org
- Smithsonian Magazine
© 2024 Tamiko Nimura
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