Yang is depicted to have an extensive past with Ruby Rose, her younger half-sister and close friend. Ruby mentions that Yang used to read bedtime stories to her when they were young. Yang was raised alongside Ruby on the island of Patch, off the west coast of Vale. Their father was a Huntsman who taught at Signal Academy and a former member of a team consisting of Summer Rose, Qrow Branwen and Raven Branwen - the last of whom disappeared shortly after her birth. Following this, Yang's father became romantically involved with Summer, who took the role of Yang's surrogate mother and gave her a sister two years later in Ruby.