In this week’s episode, we explore the history, mystery, and legacy of the Sadako and the Thousand Cranes bronze sculpture in Seattle’s Peace Park. The sculpture honors Sadako Sasaki, a Japanese girl who survived the 1945 Hiroshima atomic bombing at age two and later died from radiation-induced leukemia at age 12, and who has since become a worldwide symbol of peace through her paper crane folding.

Content Warnings: This episode contains descriptions of theft, violence, and war, and may be alarming to some listeners.

This episode is hosted by Tony Williams and features guest Saya Moriyasu.

Curated HistoryLink article set for this episode includes:

• Seattle Peace Park is dedicated on August 6th, 1990. by Kit Oldham
• United States Drops Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. by Greg Lang
• City of Seattle's Civic Art Collection (Part 1) by Traci Timmons

Additional HistoryLink resources for this episode:

• Schmoe, Floyd W. (1895-2001) by Kit Oldham
• World War II Japanese American Incarceration — Seattle/King County by David Takami
• Japanese American Resettlement in Washington After World War II by Jonathan van Harmelen
• Richland residents discover the truth about what they were producing at Hanford upon U.S. bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. by Jim Kershner

To learn more about Saya’s work, visit:

• www.sayamoriyasu.com

For more Field Notes episodes and other HistoryLink podcasts, visit:

• HistoryLink.org Podcast Page

A New Statue for Sadako Audio

They came to a stop alongside a tiny strip of grass and trees, a stone's throw from the north shore of Lake Union. They got out and looked around for police or onlookers, then they fixed their eyes on the statue, a bronze statue, a statue of a 12-year-old girl named Sadako Sasaki, holding a paper crane.

What matters is that the Sadako statue had vanished, and as the news spread across Seattle, across Washington, across the world, a lot of people were asking the same question: "What are we gonna do about it?"

I'm Tony Williams, and you're listening to History Link Field Notes, the podcast where we explore the history of Washington State one place at a time. Today, I'm visiting the Peace Park, one of the most unique parks in Seattle. It's really small, maybe 200 feet long, 50 feet wide, and it's got a weird, beautiful story.

Okay, with that out of the way, let's dive in.

Tony: Hey.

Saya: Good to see you.

Tony: Good to see you too.

Voice Over: In the middle of the Peace Park, there is a void where a statue used to be. Sadako's bronze feet are still there, anchored to a concrete pedestal, but they're little more than a gruesome reminder of the statue that stood there for 34 years.

A string of paper cranes is laid lovingly on the ground in front of the statue's feet, and I'm here with the artist who's gonna rebuild it from the ground up.

Saya: So my name is Saya Moriyasu, and I'm an artist who lives in Seattle, and I was educated at the University of Washington. And when I was 15 years old, I lived in Japan for a year doing an exchange program.

Saya: If there could be a hate crime against a sculpture, that's what it felt like. It was... It wasn't just an object. It represented a community that has been through a lot: the Japanese American community, Asian American community, and all communities of color have been through a lot.

So it really was a direct hit on that feeling of safety, security, and respect.

Saya: And the Office of [00:04:00] Arts and Cultures and the, uh, parks department that managed this land and the Department of Transportation, even though the sculpture was in the arts collection, there was no, seemingly no plans to bring it back because that's not the way public art works or parks works.

So the community came together and said, "We need to bring her back. This isn't right. She's really important to our city and internationally and to the peace community, and we... You know, what's the Peace Park without her?"

Voice Over: You've probably heard the story of Sadako and the thousand paper cranes. But if you haven't, it's a true story.

Saya: That was 10 years after the war. They were all two when it happened. They were 12, and they were thinking, "This shouldn't happen to any kids." Like, I think they were gaining perspective about the horrors of war and how Hard it, they, how hard their lives had been for the last 10 years and then just feeling like, "Hey, we're moving on. We're alive. This, you know, we've made it," kind of that feeling. And then one of their classmates suddenly becomes sick.

Voice Over: As her health declined, Sadako began folding origami cranes.

Saya: So when Sadako Sasaki was in the hospital, there's a kind of legend that if you fold a thousand paper cranes, your wish will come true.

And so her thousand paper cranes that she was folding was to get better.

Saya: Sadako Sasaki was, is memorialized at the Japanese Peace Park in Hiroshima.There's a sculpture of her standing on top of this large structure with a bell inside, and she's on top with outstretched arms and a very large skeletal kind of paper crane behind her, sort of leading people to peace and hope.

Saya: Well, I really love the story of how this all came together. Floyd Schmoe was a Quaker and an activist, so he had a deep, deep respect for peace and not thinking of people as others, as, and, and embracing other [00:07:00] communities.

Those values would stay with him his whole life. They're what brought him to Washington to pursue a degree in forestry at UW. And most importantly for this story, they're what led him to his deep connections with the Japanese American community. When FDR forced hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans into concentration camps, Floyd started organizing.

So after the war, he started wondering what he could do to help out Japan itself.

Saya: He was really horrified by the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So he went, after the war, he figured out how to go to Japan, which wasn't really easy-

Tony: Right

Saya: ... and to build houses for Hiroshima. And this was his gesture to say, you could say you're sorry, but it, it really means a lot more if you're there, a person, doing the work and looking people in the face.

Voice Over: Floyd was a member of the University Friends Meeting, a Quaker worship group. Their meeting hall is right next to where I'm talking to Saya, which is actually how the park ended up here.

And so he thought, you know, he looked, looking across the street, they, their windows from their room look right at this area. It was just garbage strewn. It was Department of Transportation land from when they built the University Street Bridge. Mm-hmm. So it just was where people parked for free. There was just garbage everywhere, rats.

It was a bad sight, and they would kind of try to clean it up, but people who wanted to park there would actively, you know, work against that. And w- yeah, so with that money he got, he said, "I, we should have Sadako Sasaki here. We should have a, a, a symbol of peace."

Saya: And he just started moving dirt and doing it. He was like, "You don't ask permission- ... you just go for it." And his family now s- you know, tells us he didn't wait for permission.

He just went for it. You know, like, come on, like, you, you know, you don't have to go through bureaucracy. Just get it done. Then the flyers he sent out was, one of them was, "Hey, everybody has rocks. We need rocks for this site." So he, uh, he literally was just telling people to bring rocks from their garden to make the retaining wall that's right there.

Anyway, the statue of Sadako wasn't just another monument. It was an important acknowledgement of the fact that Washington played a big role in the bombing of Hiroshima.

Saya: Manhattan Project was involved Richland, Washington, where they were developing the weaponry, and the, the, uh, Boeing manufactured the plane that was then altered in Wichita, Kansas.So, uh, Washington State has a significant role in the development of the nuclear weapons that bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Voice Over: It's easy to feel disconnected from the atomic bombing, to think of it as something that happened a long time ago in a faraway place, but Saya has a personal connection to it that makes it feel very, very raw.

His parents had sent him to go stay at a monastery. But after Kure was hit, they figured it was probably safe enough for him to come back And that's how he ended up just outside Hiroshima the day the bomb was dropped. And when the, you know, in August 6th, 1945, the day that the, you know, the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima, his mom was supposed to go into the city to do something.

I think they probably weren't allowed to yet. And then the day, I think it was the following day, uh, my grandfather, because he had a drill bit factory, he was able, he had a lot of trucks. So they took all the trucks and went into the city to find that nanny and relatives, and they took food and water.

Tony: Whoa.

Saya: And my father, of course, was not allowed to go, but he snuck onto the back of the truck. And so when they arrived in Hiroshima, it's like 50 miles away. You know, they've come that far. I'm sure that wasn't smooth sailing because there was debris and all sorts of things. And he, they realized he was there.

Voice Over: History Link has an article up about the bombing of Hiroshima. It's by Greg Lang, and it's called United States Drops Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. And it has some unbelievable statistics. Four square miles of city was effectively vaporized that day. 70,000 people dead instantly. Another 70,000 given doses of radiation that would kill them days or weeks or months or even years down the line.

It's hard to comprehend, which is why it was really surprising for me to hear that rather than hating the Americans occupying Hiroshima after the war, Saya's family actually became friends with them.

Saya: My grandfather and grandmother were very peace-loving people. They, my dad would say that they wouldn't say us and them.

Tony: Wow.

Saya: So the hou- you know, so it's a, you know, and they write signs in English like, "Christmas," you know, and, and stuff, you know? Chri- let's ... And they'd have parties because they were like, "Yeah, the war is over. Who suffers?" Wow. "Civilians. Let's, let's move on. Let's, you know, make a better world. This is ridiculous."

You know? It's ... And one of the officers had a son named Jimmy who was, I guess, two years younger than my dad, and they became good friends. And they, uh ... So my father, s- I'm sure his English was terrible, but somehow they were friends, and they w- like, worked in a restaurant. Looked like a, I think it was called Opera or something. It was a restaurant that was for the occupying forces.

Tony: Oh, yeah.

Tony: Oh, yeah

Saya: ... the United States. And Jimmy's parents, uh, supported him, not financially, but you know, did the paperwork so that he could come to, uh, Oregon State.

Voice Over: Which is where he met Saya's mom. And after hearing this story, I can’t imagine a person better qualifiedto forge a new Sadako statue for Peace Park.

Tony: So tell me about when this Sadako statue was stolen, how you got involved with the project to replace it?

Saya: So, a committee was formed, and I wasn’t involved at the beginning. A committee was formed from a larger group...a larger group was forming around bringing Sadako back and bringing the sculpture back, and doing something in the Peace Park.

Voice Over: Saya was selected from a huge group of applicants. Her proposal wasn’t just to replace the statue, it was to make something even more enduring.

Saya: The sculpture that was here I didn't think was a particular likeness of her. She... It wasn't how she wore her hair. She didn't look particularly Japanese. Floyd Schmoe had done a sketch and, and Gerald Smith had sculpted it. So it wasn't done by and for the Asian community.

Saya: In the story of Sadako Sasaki, her brother talks about how she was gifted a kimono from her family at 12 years old. So she was sick at that time, and in the hospital, and her dad, you know, and I mentioned how mon- how much financial problems they had. Her father and mother saved up some money to buy the fabric to make a kimono, and she was at first like, "No, no, I don't...

No, I don't need it. Why?" You know, and then she's thinking, "What is the holiday? Why are they buying me a kimono?" But then when she got to the fabric store, she was like, "Oh, I want a kimono." And then, you know, just she was a, a little girl, and so they bought it, and then her aunt over the weekend sewed her the kimono.

Saya: And she'll have her arms stretched out, but kind of in a gesture like you would just like when you get a kimono and you're a kid and you put it on, it's like, "I have wings." It's like this kind of... It, it, it's just expansive and beautiful, and so her expression that I'm trying to capture is that kind of just moment that she's having with herself. There's nobody looking at her, taking a picture of her. She's just enjoying from the inside out that feeling, and that's... I wanna think of Sadako Sasaki receiving that kimono and not being sick, and enjoying it as a 12-year-old should, and just being free and at peace, and there was never a war.

Tony: Yeah.

Saya: And that, and that's what I want for all children is no war.

Voice Over: But the statue hasn't been easy to make. It turns out the layers of bureaucracy you have to bushwhack through to replace a stolen statue are not for the faint of heart.

Saya: Well, that's just really not the way it works, sadly. It's like there's no insurance for public art. There's n- they, they barely can maintain between Washington State and the city and all the different art collections, they, the maintenance is just a pittance per year.

Tony: Yeah.

Saya: So maybe if your sculpture gets tagged, they can do something. But it's gonna be on a list with a lot of other things. The artist, Daryl Smith, has passed away, so he can't recreate it, and they don't, they don't wanna use bronze. So it's not like it, they can replace it, because it, it just, it ends up being in a no man's land until the community pushes to have something happen.

Voice Over: And even once the community clearly says that they do want to replace the statue, there are a lot of hoops to jump through.

And there's requirements when a community donates the piece. But our argument is that the community already donated the piece, and they owned it, but they're requiring, as a community-donated artwork, that we have a 20-year maintenance endowment. But we don't know how much that is.

Tony: Oh, God.

Saya: So we're raising money, and it's- It's like the IRS. They're like, "You owe us money." And you're like, "How much?" And they're like, "We have no idea." Yeah. "But you do owe us money." I know that the people working in these city departments are all dedicated and smart, but it i- th- when you're in a bureaucracy, you're in a bureaucracy. Yeah. And the wheels churn at the speed they churn.

Tony: It sounds monumentally difficult.

Voice Over: The third article Saya brought me to talk about today is called City of Seattle's Civic Art Collection, Part One by Tracy Timmons, and it helps to explain why that process is so complicated. At various times, public art in Seattle has been under the purview of the City Council, the Parks Department, the Municipal Arts Commission, the Office of Arts and Culture, and more.

But things are moving in a positive direction.

Saya: Maritza Rivera, who's the councilwoman in this district, she put into the city budget last year 400,000, so that was a good chunk.

Tony: Oh, that's great.

Saya: Yeah. And then the community's raised some money, too, that's a- was already in there. And then it looks like Washington State is gonna put in money, and that really is huge sigh of relief because otherwise we were gonna have to start a capital campaign, and-

Tony: Yeah

Tony: Oh, wow.

Saya: Yeah. So we have- Some folks in Hiroshima. Yes, from her- Wow ... from her classmates

Voice Over: The depth of connection between Seattle and Hiroshima is kind of remarkable when you think about it. The horrifying connection to the bomb, the beautiful connections made after the war by Floyd Schmoe. Even something as simple as a Japanese American raising money from her classmates in Hiroshima for a monument in Seattle.

It's Saya's job to metabolize all these connections, to take the story of Sadako and her own story, the story of her ancestors, and transform it into something beautiful.

And that can be really hard, because the pain in those stories is real.

And then, uh, you know, my family, my Aunt Yukie said she remembered one of their nannies, Mi-Chan, and she said Mi-Chan was pregnant when the bomb hit, and she, uh, her, her baby came out black, dead. Ugh. And the, and then she said that she helped somebody else look for their child in piles of bodies. So those stories are part of my family's history.

Voice Over: But despite that trauma, or maybe because of it, Saya remains dedicated to seeing the project through. Sadako will stand in the peace park again, a monument to the cost of war and a reminder of the opportunity to choose peace.

Saya: I hope so.I hope so

Tony: ... as you get through the process.

Saya: I w- what I really hope is that, that we have world peace, whatever that means and however impossible it is. Let's do that

You can find this article and all the articles we talked about today in audio and text formats in the show notes or at historylink.org. Take it away, Jennifer.

Jennifer: The steep hillside, located between Pacific and 40th Streets, had become an informal garbage dump and was infested with rats and overgrown with brambles, Scotch broom, and other invasive species.

Navigating the city bureaucracy to win approval for the peace park and raising funds to construct it took longer. The fundraising effort got a boost in November 1988 when Schmoe received the Hiroshima Peace Center's Kiyoshi Tanimoto Peace Award for his home-building work. He devoted the award of more than $4,000 to the park project, including the foundry costs.

Voice Over: Field Notes is a production of HistoryLink. You can check out over 8,000 articles about Washington history on our website, historylink.org. And again, check out the show notes for links to audio and text versions of the articles we talked about today.

If you like the show, please rate and review it on your favorite podcast app, and share it with a friend. It really helps us out. Special thanks this week to sculptor, peace activist, and lovely conversationalist, Saya Moriyasu. I wish you all the luck getting the statue finished. Ganbatte kudasai.