Criminal - The Magpie

Episode Date: April 8, 2022

When Shigeru Yabu was 9 years old, he and his family were incarcerated at Heart Mountain Internment Camp, along with thousands of other Japanese and Japanese American families. One day, Shigeru discovered a baby magpie that had fallen out of its nest. He named her Maggie. “That bird walked up my arm all the way to my shoulder, and we looked at each other, eye to eye.” Shigeru Yabu’s book is Hello Maggie! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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worth your attention, and they call these series essentials. This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey

involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family. Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts. We were at a wedding, and many of us kids were playing on the stair newspapers in his hand,

yelling, Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Japs bomb Pearl Harbor! This is Shigeru Yabu. Everyone has always called him Shig. Today, he's 89 years old. He was 9 years old on December 7, 1941, when he learned that the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service

had attacked an American naval base in Hawaii. We didn't know where Pearl Harbor was. We didn't know what the situation was. And so consequently, we went inside the house at the wedding to inform them that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. So when you went into the wedding to report this news, do you remember the look on your parents' face? Do you remember how the adults looked when they heard this news? Well, I don't think it was fearful. It was just shocking. The Secretary of the U.S. Navy announced that the attack had been

made possible by, quote, the most effective fifth column work of the entire war. The idea of a fifth column refers to any group within a larger group, secretly acting to undermine it. In this case, Americans were told that there were Japanese and Japanese-Americans living in the U.S. who had assisted or enabled the attack on Pearl Harbor. A leading general named John DeWitt said, There isn't such a thing as a loyal Japanese, and it is just impossible to determine their loyalty by investigation. It just can't be done. Hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the FBI began arresting Japanese-American community

leaders, more than 1,200 people, and froze their assets. Shigeyabu's family watched what was happening. His parents owned a dry-cleaning business on Divisadero Street in San Francisco. He says they had to leave their home and business and move in with another family in a section of San Francisco called Japantown. Shig had to change schools.

He remembers his teacher throwing a farewell party before he moved. She made cupcakes. And what was embarrassing to me was she was crying because I was leaving. I guess she knew more about the war situation than I did. On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order that allowed the government to remove anyone deemed a threat to national security from designated military areas. Weeks later, General John DeWitt ordered the forced evacuation of anyone with Japanese ancestry from these military areas, which included San Francisco. Sheikh's parents told him that they would be leaving the apartment and leaving San Francisco.

He says they were scared, because his stepfather was in the country illegally, which they feared put him at even more risk. That was our first fear. The second fear was I had a, well, inside of the toolbox was a jackknife. And prior to that, we saw a movie where they threw the jackknife against a person. And so we would, as a young boy, practice throwing the jackknife into a fence, trying to make it stick. What happened was my parents looked all over for that jackknife because we figured the FBI was going to come and inspect all of our belongings. His family had to sell or give away most of their possessions,

even their furniture. They couldn't take much with them. Shig couldn't bring his pets. He had to find someone to take care of them. Leaving them behind was the hardest part, he says, because he was an only child and they were his family. His friend Russell said he would take care of Shig's pets,

which included a dog, canary, turtle, and goldfish. That was the last time I saw my animals. My pets. Shig and his family, along with hundreds of other Japanese Americans, were taken by train to a detention center,

the Pomona Assembly Center, on the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds. It was a temporary stop, while the government constructed larger, more permanent facilities. There were 14 to 16 of these temporary camps around the country, mostly located on fairgrounds or racetracks.

Shake and his family spent four months there, sharing one room with another family of four. It was the middle of summer, and Shig says no one was used to the Los Angeles heat. Food was scarce, and people would wait in long lines just to be assured they would get a meal. And then, one day, Shig's family was told that they were moving again.

But no one would tell them where they were going. They were taken to the train station and put on the train. The windows on the train were covered. Some people said it was so that the people on the outside won't throw rocks at us, or maybe they didn't want us to know where we were going. But I grew up as a young boy going to the movies, Cowboys and Indians. So in the curtain and in between the window, I could see out.

And what was I looking for? Either a cowboy or Indian. Then all of a sudden someone mentioned, we are going to Wyoming. Well, we stayed four days and four nights in the train. And most of the time, during World War, freight train had priority. So we had to stay on the sidetrack until that freight train went by.

So the freight train, we may have to wait an hour or more. And that's why it took us four days and four nights. And I remember we stopped at Billings, Montana. It was a group of boys and girls, maybe around 10 or 12 of them. We told the boys and girls, come on over, talk to us. Instead, they walked backwards a couple steps. Fear. They probably never see so many Japanese in their lives.

Shaik and his parents were taken to an internment camp that was called the Heart Mountain Relocation Center. It was in the upper west corner of Wyoming, not far from Yellowstone. It was over 700 acres. There were more than 450 barracks surrounded by barbed wire fences and guard towers. It was one of 10 internment camps the government had built. And my first thought was, I'm going to get lost. How am I going to find my barrack?

Fortunately, it was very simple. They had different blocks. They were numbered and compartments. So you couldn't get lost if you knew what you're looking for. And when we arrived at the barrack, we walked in, and my parents sat on the bed with Army blankets on. There was no chair, no tables, no furniture, no water. But we did have two items that I remember. Way up high from the ceiling hung a dim light bulb. And near the wall, you see a brand new potbelly stove.

Shig began learning his way around, finding out where the mess hall was, learning the protocol for using the shared showers and bathrooms. He also discovered the recreation area, where he and other kids would spend hours playing marbles together. They also had to get used to the Wyoming weather, which was much different than San Francisco. They arrived at Heart Mountain in the fall and quickly realized it was a whole different climate.

When it got 28 below zero, the adults placed dirt, a rectangular shape, a large area, filled it with water, and in the morning, it became ice. So we learned to ice skate. When the weather got warmer, Shig says they spent their days playing basketball and football, softball, just finding ways to pass the time.

He started collecting bugs. He found a bug that he thought he would try and make his pet. Then it tried to sting him, and he realized it was a scorpion. And then, one day, Shig and his friend Akihiro decided to go and explore the guard towers that line the perimeter of the camp. Shig and his friend thought that they might go and ask the guards towers that line the perimeter of the camp. Shig and his friend thought that they might go and ask the guards if they could see their weapons. Then they realized there was a hole in the fence. They started squeezing themselves through it to sneak out of camp.

They invited other kids and would hike down to a riverbed to play or go swimming in the river. One day, they brought slingshots and marbles and decided to go hunting. And that's when they saw the nest of a magpie. We'll be right back. Support for Criminal comes from Apple Podcasts. Each month, Apple Podcasts highlights one series worth your attention, and they call these series essentials. This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story,

a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family. Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts.

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to give you a primer on how to integrate AI into your life. So, tune into AI Basics, How and When to Use AI, a special series from Pivot sponsored by AWS, wherever you get your podcasts. Magpies are pretty birds. They're black with white patches on their wings and a long tail. When their wings are extended, you can see feathers which look bluish-green. They're social birds, loud, constantly making noise. They can be a pest. It's said that magpies have long been associated with people

and would sometimes follow Native American tribes while out on hunting parties. They're found all over the West. At one time, ranchers and farmers tried to exterminate magpies. It didn't work. So one of the kids said, I wonder who could hit that nest, magpie nest, way up high. So all of us started shooting. And eventually that nest started to weave, move back and forth.

It fell all the way down to the ground, at least 35 feet. And I wanted to see what inside of a bird nest looked like, a magpie nest? I looked in. Little did I realize a magpie looked at me. I looked at the magpie, the baby magpie bird. It started to beg for food. And we looked around for bugs. We didn't know what the magpie bird ate. From the Shoshone River, we dipped our hands and

put water into the mouth of the magpie bird. And it got a, crawled out of the nest. And one of the older boys next to me said, you know, that bird is going to die. I said, how do you know? Because the mother bird cannot lift that baby bird up to another magpie nest. And so I guess I had a deep feeling about this magpie bird because what happened back with my own parents.

Shig says his mother had raised him alone until he was four. She found work cooking and cleaning for a rich family. They made her live in their home, and so Shig lived with a babysitter most of the time. Except for Sundays, when his mother would come and get him, and they'd go to the park. They'd stay together all day. When it got dark, she would walk him back to the babysitter's house,

and then she would walk back to the home of the family that she worked for. Seeing the baby magpie, who couldn't get back to its mother, meant something to him. So it was hot, summer. Because it was hot, and this is a baby magpie bird, I put my T-shirt into the Sashoni River, put the ice-cold shirt on myself, put the bird so it won't get hot, and we walked back towards Heart Mountain.

There was no trail. Walked along the creek and eventually came to the barbed wires. So we all took turns lifting up the barbed wire, spreading it, and we all crawled back into the relocation center. Schick says that he immediately started calling the magpie, Maggie. When he got the magpie back to his barrack, his mother told him to take it right back to where he had found it. She told him that the baby bird was very likely going to die.

But just then, Schick's stepfather came in and convinced his mother to let the bird stay. They got some food from the mess hall and water and started feeding the baby magpie. His stepfather built the bird a cage from leftover scrap wood they found. And every morning she could hear, Maggie could hear people walking towards the restroom and back, and to the mess hall and back. Some people had to go to school. Others went to work.

What she was trying to do was get the internist to come and visit her and talk with the bird. So when I went to school or played with my friends, I would always say, hello, Maggie. When I returned, I would always say, hello, Maggie. When I returned, I would also say, hello, Maggie. And that bird one day said, hello, Maggie. I thought, well, wait a minute. This is a wild bird, a baby bird.

And I said it again, hello, Maggie. And the bird said, hello, Maggie. Wow, a bird that could talk. Today, one of our favorite stories from our other show. I'm Phoebe Judge, and this is love. There were over 10,000 people incarcerated at the Heart Mountain internment camp. And Schick says that very quickly, words started spreading about this talking bird. People started visiting their barrack to come and see if it was actually true. So that bird got all kinds of people of all ages visiting.

And Maggie really enjoyed having visitors. They would say, come on, Maggie. And Maggie would say, come on Maggie. And Maggie would say, come on Maggie. My mother, she didn't work. And each day she would say, what you doing? And Maggie would say, what you doing? And the two sounded like they were fighting, arguing. I didn't understand what they were yelling about, screaming at each other.

But years later, I found out both Maggie and my mother were the best of friends. At the beginning I would open the cage door, place my hand, and the natural instinct of a bird is to peck, protect themselves. I didn't mind. I got attention from the bird.

The bird got attention from me. Then I got thinking. I remember in San Francisco with a dog. I pet the dog's head. Top of the head. And loved it. And I said, well, this is a bird. I'm going to pet the bird on the head,

not knowing what it's going to do other than possibly peck my hands again. When I used my finger to pet the bird's head, that bird jumped on my fist, walked up my arms all the way to my shoulder, and we looked at each other, eye to eye. Wow, just that little pet pity, a little attention, a little affection, a little... It meant a lot to that bird. It meant a lot to me. Maggie wasn't Shig's only pet.

He also had a toad, a lizard, and a salamander. He started an ant farm. There was a dog that Maggie liked two barracks over, and his friend Arthur kept a rattlesnake. His neighbor next door had two pigeons. Maggie began spending more time outside of the barracks on the arm of Shig or sitting next to his mother.

The bird learned to mimic just about anything that she heard. Shig says she especially liked listening to teenagers whistling. And one of the things they did was whistle short, simple tunes. And Maggie learned these little, simple, short tunes. But her favorite tune was the wolf call. Maggie began imitating the teenage boys who would whistle after girls as they walked by.

And all of a sudden, this lovely girl will stop and look around to see if she knew that boy or guy whistling. She would never find that person because it was a bird in that cage whistling that wolf call. And of course, my mother would laugh because how many people will figure out it was a bird that could do a wolf call. The adults, especially the seniors,

will come by and usually a lady, a Japanese lady, elderly, when they laugh, they put their hands on their mouths and not very loud,

softly, would laugh. Maggie would imitate the exact laughter. Well, that lady was not only amused, but shocked. She would burst out laughing.

And guess what? Maggie did the same, loud and clear laughter. But what was amazing was two elderly Japanese ladies sitting on the stairway, talking in Japanese, laughing, talking in Japanese and laughing. And we would laugh because if we didn't look, we assumed that there was three Japanese ladies. No, two Japanese ladies, one magpie bird.

Shake says that eventually, Maggie would move freely around the camp, stopping at tables to watch people play marbles, which she would try to steal, or visiting the barrack where the dog lived. And she knew that it wasn't where she lived. But a man would come by and say, Come on, Maggie, follow me. I'll take you back to where you belong. And the two would talk back and forth.

And immediately when she saw the barrack where she lived, she could identify, she knew she was home. Every single day, my stepfather, my mother,

myself, neighbors, people visiting, they all felt a connection with this bird. And I believe the bird enjoyed company. Likewise, the people that saw Maggie enjoyed. And I didn't realize this. After leaving camp, until their death,

my parents talked about Maggie their entire life. We'll be right back. What software do you use at work? The answer to that question is probably more complicated than you want it to be. The average U.S. company deploys more than 100 apps, and ideas about the work we do can be radically changed by the tools we use to do it. So what is enterprise software anyway? What is productivity software? How will AI affect both? And how are these tools changing the way we use our computers to make stuff, communicate, and plan for the future? In this three-part special

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an editorial about the internment of Japanese and Japanese-Americans appeared in the Washington Post. It read, The panic of Pearl Harbor is now past. Whatever excuse there once was for evacuating and holding them indiscriminately no longer exists. Later that year,

Attorney General Francis Biddle wrote in a letter to President Roosevelt that the present practice of keeping loyal American citizens in concentration camps on the basis of race is dangerous and repugnant to the principles of our government. But nothing changed. An estimated 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans were incarcerated in camps around the United States. Shigeyabu kept up with what was going on with the war, and eventually he saw newsreels of Germany's surrender

and saw clips of the U.S. Air Force bombing the islands around Japan, then Iwo Jima. And then, on August 15, 1945, the sirens went off at Heart Mountain. They'd never been used before. Loud, clear, and not for a minute. It was such a long duration. I would say maybe 15, 20, even longer minutes. And we were outside playing basketball, and we heard the siren.

We lay down on the dirt ground, hard. We were in tears because we were happy that the war was over. So it was happiness. So I do remember distinctly that particular day. The WRA said, we encourage all the attorneys to leave as soon as possible. Each person will receive a $25 check, a free transportation on a railroad, on a train, to any railroad station in the United States. And each week, we will go down to the, not the railroad station, but the railroad tracks to say goodbye, good luck, wish you well. But what I remember as I was walking back towards my barrack, how lonely.

Each week, 500 or plus internees left so the relocation center we were in became vacant Sheikh remembers that even when he and his parents were permitted to leave they waited

there was too much uncertainty we did not leave till first part of there was too much uncertainty. We did not leave till first part of November of 1945. And the reason for that is because my stepfather was an illegal alien. He was, how are you going to get a social security card?

How are you going to get a Social Security card? How are you going to find a job? So we stayed. Every day, more and more people left. Shaik remembers that eventually all of his friends were gone. I felt real fortunate that I had one companion. And it happened to be Maggie. So we talked and talked. Maggie needs people.

She needs people to talk to, either way, both ways. It was Maggie that sensed how lonely it was. Yes, Maggie had myself, Shig, my mother, stepfather Joe and that was it. Every morning she was so lonely and one day Maggie was on the bottom of her cage with her eyes flickering. I could hear behind my back my mother crying. That night Maggie slept for the first time under my bed in the barrack. I got up early next morning because Maggie was first to get up, except Maggie went to heaven. I dug a hole, placed her favorite toys inside the hole, put my old t-shirt onto Maggie. Sadly, put back the dirt, covered Maggie up, made a mound, made a cross. I was crying. But I felt fortunate that for that short period of time, I had Maggie to talk to. Shig and his family moved to San Mateo, not too far from San Francisco.

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 got rid of measures that barred Asians from becoming U.S. citizens, and Shig's stepfather became a citizen that same year. Shig went on to serve in the Navy during the Korean War and went to San Diego State College to study public health and play basketball. In 1953, he got married and had three sons, and for nearly 30 years, he worked for the Boys and Girls Clubs in California. He says that his family never stopped talking about Maggie. Maggie kept the spirits up for all the internees.

And when there was no more internees left, she died from a broken heart. Maggie, to me, and like all my pets, is something that the more you give, the more they give back. Many people have pets, but how many pets do you have that did so many different things? It meant so much to so many people. It brought joy to them. It brought happiness.

In 1983, a government report concluded that not a single documented act of espionage, sabotage, or fifth-column activity was committed by an American citizen of Japanese ancestry or by a resident Japanese alien on the West Coast. And then, in 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed legislation mandating apologies and reparations

to Japanese Americans who were forcibly incarcerated during World War II. Shig says he's been back to Heart Mountain 17 times or so. There's a historical center there now called the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center. You can see the remaining barracks that still stand and visit the hospital that treated all the internees. You can visit the root cellar that the internees built. You can also walk along a path of inscribed bricks at the front of the center. It's a place to honor and remember the people who

were held there. On the path there, surrounded by all those names, you can see a brick that Shig dedicated. It reads, Maggie, honored by Shiguru Yabu. Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson and Libby Foster. Rob Byers is our technical director. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal.

You can see them at thisiscriminal.com. We're on Facebook and Twitter, at Criminal Show, and Instagram, at criminal underscore podcast. And you can find out more about our show, This Is Love, at thisislovepodcast.com. Criminal is recorded in the studios of North Carolina Public Radio, WUNC. We're a part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

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