When my mother was a child growing up in San Francisco in the 1920s, there were many more restrictions than there are today. For example, Japanese were not allowed to go swimming at Sutro Baths out by the Cliff House. Vacation destinations therefore had to be carefully chosen, usually researched through the Japanese community grapevine, in order to avoid hostility and disappointment. My family often packed picnic lunches, not only to save money and eat the foods they preferred, but because there were establishments in California that did not welcome non-whites.
But Yosemite was open to everyone. There are pictures of my grandparents with my mother, aunt, and uncles, picnicking in Yosemite in the 1920s through the 1950s, when I was born.
My father also had memories of being taken on family trips to Yosemite in the 1920s by his father, a Japanese immigrant who ran a grocery store in Berkeley. The Sasaki family “returned” to Hiroshima in 1926 — “returned” in quotes because my dad and his sisters had never been to Japan, and they had a hard time fitting in there because they were “different.” In 1936, my dad came back to San Francisco on his own, at age 18, lured back, perhaps, by those happy childhood memories.
With genes like that, it’s no wonder that Yosemite was woven into my DNA. My first trip there was in utero; my mother was expecting me when the family vacationed there in 1952. After the war and the internment of Japanese-Americans, Japanese-Americans struggled to reestablish their lives, and money was often tight. But it was still possible for a man to take five days off in the summer to take his family of six to Yosemite. We stayed in Cedar Cottage – my mother no longer enjoyed camping out, as it reminded her of internment camp.
I still remember picnicking at a campground one year. We finished our meal and had extra milk left. My dad walked over to the white family picnicking at the next spot and asked if they could use it. They accepted it with thanks. So even families working their way up to the middle class could go to Yosemite and enjoy the outdoors in one of the most beautiful places on this earth.
Our childhood was filled with Yosemite memories: craning our necks to watch Glacier Point from the valley floor on a summer night, hearing someone call “Hello, Glacier Point!” and an answering call from above, “Hello, Camp Curry!” Then there would be a dramatic pause, and the magic words: “Let the fire fall!” And a cascade of fire would fall from Glacier Point to the valley floor. I remember seeing a bear for the first time; getting caught in a summer storm while hiking down from Glacier Point and seeing a lightning bolt crackle over Yosemite Fall (I was a city kid, so this was a huge deal); almost drowning in the Merced River and being pulled out by my Uncle Edwin; feeding chipmunks (before it was prohibited) from the balcony behind the old cafeteria at the top of Glacier Point.
As my sisters and I grew into adulthood, Yosemite stayed with us. We experienced it in a different way – camping out with friends, or exploring Wawona and the high country. My job at one point involved conducting training programs for Japanese managers, and I always tried to plan a weekend trip to Yosemite. I wanted them to get a sense of the size, beauty, and wildness of this country. In Japan, everything is so controlled and orderly – even nature; so it was always an eye-opener for them to get a glimpse of the wilderness and what it must have taken to survive in it.
When my dad was diagnosed with cancer in 1984, one of his last wishes was to see Yosemite one last time. But it was winter, and by the time the weather cleared, he was too weak to make the trip.
As if to make up for that, we began taking our mom and aunt to Yosemite every spring and fall. In 1987, we discovered that, after many years of closure, the trail to Sentinel Dome had been reopened. We hiked from the Glacier Point road to the top of Sentinel Dome. My mother was thrilled to make it to the top.
Like clockwork, my sister Susan and brother-in-law Daryl and I took our mom and aunt on twice-yearly trips to Yosemite. Sometimes our sister Joan, brother-in-law Paul, and niece Stephanie came too. We had our little rituals: stopping for a picnic lunch in Modesto, near where my brother-in-law grew up; walking out to the meadow and the swinging bridge (even though it doesn’t swing any more); bringing a bento (picnic lunch), and scones for the next day’s breakfast; reading or writing postcards on the balcony at the Lodge; going for a serious hike or bike ride while my mom and aunt rode the shuttle bus to the Village, Happy Aisles, and Mirror Lake; stopping at the Almond Plaza in Salida on the way home. Vince, who works at the Mountain Room Grill at Yosemite Lodge, and Paul Beamer at the Ahwahnee, where we always had breakfast before heading home, would greet us like old friends.
My aunt finally became too frail to make the trip; that year, my mom bought a video of Yosemite so that she could watch it after she was no longer able to come.
Now my mom is gone, too. But we still have Yosemite; and now, when we walk through the meadow to the river, the spirits of our loved ones walk with us. Hovering in the brilliant redbud, the flowering dogwood, or flowing under the stoic granite of the stone bridge, there are yet more good memories, waiting to be made.
First published in Inspiring Generations: 150 Years, 150 Stories in Yosemite. Yosemite Conservancy, 2014.
All images © R.A. Sasaki. All rights reserved.
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