It Runs in the Family

My Great Grandfather, Yon Miyasaki

Growing up, I never heard much about my dad's family. They lived all the way across the country, so for a while our only communication was the occasional Christmas card. In the summer of 2015, I finally got to sit through a 7 hour flight, packed full of delays, and go see them for the very first time. Meeting the family on my dad's side was an honor as they had so many interesting stories to tell and much to teach me, mainly about my great grandfather, Yon Miyasaki.

My great grandfather and his father

On April 21st, 1908, my great grandfather was born near Los Angeles, California. I don't know much about his childhood other than he was born and raised a farmer. He lived a pretty average life, until the 1940s, when WWII began. 

The entrance of Manzanar

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the US government decided to initiate the forced relocation of Japanese Americans into places called internment camps. They were forced to give up their belongings and houses and taken to be locked up in their designated camp. My great grandfather was placed in the Manzanar camp in California. Here, my grandfather and all of his siblings were raised alongside 10,000 other incarcerated Japanese Americans.

Life on the camp was hard for the people living there. They had no privacy in the barracks, often sharing a room with strangers. The lines to get food and use the bathrooms were always long, yet the people at the camp were determined to make the best of it.

"Manzanar Co-op Fish Market"

"Yon Miyasaki Manzanar Railway Express Clerk Unloading Fish Cargo from PMT Truck Destined to Co-op Fish Market"

My great grandfather worked as a railway express clerk, unloading fish from the trucks that arrived and taking them to the fish market. But in his spare time, he was practicing his new hobby, photography. Pictures were not exactly allowed inside the camp, the privilege only being granted to a special few, but my great grandfather decided to ignore that rule and throughout his years living there, he would create dozens of scrapbooks filled with pictures from his daily life, showing the good and bad of daily life.

One of Yon's Scrapbooks

Yon with his father

The thing my great grandfather cherished most was his family. All of his scrapbooks are full of pictures of his neighbors, sisters, brothers, and children. Everyone around him was his family. After speaking to my grandfather, I learned that Yon was a very charismatic man who "liked to joke around." My grandfather explained that one time, he had a date and was planning on wearing a nice suit. To embarrass him, my great grandfather put a hammer in the pocket of the suit to stretch it out, forcing my grandfather to wear something else. However, to make up for it he let my grandfather borrow his car. 

Yon with my father, Paul Miyasaki

Unfortunately, I never got to meet my great grandfather. He passed away on June 23rd, 1995 and is buried at Rose Hills Memorial park. Despite not knowing him, he taught me a lot about the importance of family, not only through your direct relatives, but with those in your community.