Shigeru “Shig” Yabu, author of two books about the Japanese American incarceration at Heart Mountain, received a lifetime achievement award last Saturday after a screening of an animated film adapted from his book "Hello Maggie!"

Yabu, 94, received the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation's Douglas W. Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award for his decades of service on the foundation board and constant advocacy for teaching Japanese American history.

A native of San Francisco, Yabu and his family were forced from their homes and incarcerated at Heart Mountain during World War II. After the war, Yabu served in the Navy and was the first director of the Boys & Girls Club of Camarillo. 

Yabu collaborated on “Hello Maggie!” with his longtime friend Willie Ito, who enjoyed a more-than-50-year career as an animator with Disney, Warner Brothers and Hanna-Barbera. The book was adapted into a film produced by the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation and directed by animator and educator Tony Tarantini. 

The film was screened in the Democracy Center theater at the Japanese American National Museum. Afterward, Ito joined JANM President and CEO Ann Burroughs, Heart Mountain Executive Director Aura Sunada Newlin and Shirley Ann Higuchi, the foundation's board chair, for a discussion about the film and the long-term effects of the Japanese American incarceration.