About time...

Graduation Heals World War II Internment Wounds

Miyada was 17 when he was sent with his family and more than 17,000 other detainees to a patch of desert land near Poston, Arizona, shortly after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor during World War II. A teacher later sent him a letter expressing shock that he couldn’t finish high school and included a diploma — but Miyada always regretted that he missed the celebration.

In May, Miyada met Newport Harbor’s principal, Sean Boulton, during a Memorial Day service at the high school and Boulton invited him to walk with the 560 seniors who would be graduating. Boulton even found a copy of the program from what would have been Miyada’s graduation day in 1942.

“My name was on there,” Miyada said. “I wasn’t able to attend, of course, but my name was there anyway. It was very emotional.”

After two years in the camp, Miyada moved to Michigan, where he was drafted. He went on to serve in the U.S. Army in Europe and then earned a doctorate in chemistry from Michigan State University. He eventually became a professor at the University of California, Irvine.

Kudos to the school for inviting this man to finally walk in graduation. It was a great injustice that so many were sent away into internment camps for the sin of being Japanese-American, yet as his story shows, the same government had no trouble drafting him and sending him into war. The Allegiance musical, whose site hosted this story, also tells a story of internment. One cast member is George Takei (Sulu from 'Star Trek'), who himself was sent to an internment camp in Arkansas as a boy, and who worked very hard to get the play off the ground. I really wish I could watch it on Broadway.