Miyao, Yuki

Yuki Miyao was arrested with her husband, Shigemaru Miyao, head priest of the Izumo Taisha Shinto Shrine, shortly after the Pearl Harbor bombing. It is believed that she was mistaken for Shigemaru's step-mother, Yoshie Miyao, who was herself a Shinto priest.

Yuki and Yoshie Miyao were confined together at Sand Island. They were among a group of only eight Hawaii women who were arrested and sent to the Mainland for internment. They were unlike the women who entered Mainland internment as a way to reunify their families, for these women had been arrested and incarcerated.

In addition to the Miyaos, four other women were sent in the Fourth Transfer Group; they were Kiku Horibe, Miyuki Kawasaki, Haru Tanaka, and Tsuta Yamane. Two more women, Kanzen Ito and Ishiko Mori, were sent several months later with the Seventh Transfer Group. Moreover, among this group of eight women, three other women had husbands who also were arrested and interned; they were Ryosaku Kawasaki (Miyuki), Motokazu Mori (Ishiko), and Seigi Yamane (Tsuta).

The imprisonment of the Miyao adults left the three young Miyao children to be cared for by relatives of grandmother Yoshie. In August 1942, the Miyao children joined a group of internee wives and children transiting the U.S. Mainland and were reunited with their parents in the Crystal City camp in Texas.