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In An Internment Camp, Maggie The Magpie Lifted Spirits Shig Yabu rescued a bird when he was a young boy detained at a Japanese relocation camp in Wyoming. "She was so compassionate with the internees," he said. "I don't think she realized she was a bird."
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StoryCorps

Sharing And Preserving The Stories Of Our Lives

< In An Internment Camp, Maggie The Magpie Lifted Spirits

In An Internment Camp, Maggie The Magpie Lifted Spirits

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(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Time now for StoryCorps. Seventy-eight years ago this week, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the forced relocation and incarceration of more than 100,000 Americans of Japanese descent. Shig Yabu was one of them. He was 10 years old when he was interned with his family at Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming. Now 87 years old, he came to StoryCorps to tell his grandson about the day he and his friends came across a magpie nest that had fallen from a tree and all that followed.

SHIG YABU: This little baby bird was begging for food. And an older boy said to me, that bird's going to die. So I decided to adopt that magpie, which I called Maggie. My stepfather made a cage. And every time I left or returned, I would say, hello, Maggie. And she repeated, hello, Maggie. And if somebody laughed, she could imitate the exact laughter, which meant kids, seniors - you name it - all came to see her. During the summer, we allowed Maggie to go out and roam between the barracks. And she was like a social worker. She was so compassionate with the internees. I don't think she realized she was a bird.

Eventually, we knew that the war was going to end. But our family did not leave, not until the next-to-the-last train. And Heart Mountain became a ghost town. But I was fortunate. Maggie and I would talk for hours. Well, two weeks before we left, Maggie was on the bottom of the cage with just her eyes flickering. And early in the morning, she died. So I dug a hole, placed her favorite toys, put my old t-shirt on Maggie and buried her, made a cross. Maggie was like an internee. She was forced into Heart Mountain just like we were. And even to this day, her legacy still stands. That little bird kept the spirits up for all the internees. And when she was no longer needed, she went to heaven.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLES ATLAS' "PHOTOSPHERE")

MARTIN: Shig Yabu at StoryCorps in California. He talked with his grandson Evan about the three years he was interned at Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming. You can hear more about Shig and how he's made sure Maggie's legacy lives on in the StoryCorps podcast. Get it at npr.org.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLES ATLAS' "PHOTOSPHERE")

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