Bearing the Unbearable tells the story of the forced removal of Japanese Americans from their home on Bainbridge Island during World War II and their subsequent incarceration in Manzanar and Minidoka concentration camps, innocent of any crime and suspect only because of their ethnicity.

Told in the words of Bainbridge Islanders who survived the camps, the film explores the experience of incarceration and the unconstitutional suspension of these islanders' civil rights.