<Begin Segment 25>

TI: So it's almost like, by writing this book, it's really opened up this whole world for you, in terms of being much more aware. It seemed like it's connected you with your mother more, in terms of just understanding how much she cared for Maggie, and it seems like it's really, it's a great story.

SY: And also, too, the interest of the students. I just gave a talk at Newberry Park, where they asked, "Do you mind if we have two classes?" I said, "Sure, bring 'em on." And when I gave this story, I, these students wrote beautiful notes about the magpie and about me, and it was not about me, it's a story... one Chinese girl, "My parents were immigrants, and I can understand what you went through," and all this stuff, and so you get different ideas from all these different other people. So I hope, eventually, with this new book, A Boy of Heart Mountain, it doesn't really apply just about me, it doesn't apply just about Heart Mountain, it applies to, whether it's a boy or a girl, it applies to any camp, because it's a story about human beings, what we went through. And I told Willie, I said, "I do not want to write an autobiography because I don't want to be doing this." [Pats self on the back] So when this Barbara Bazaldua said, "I want to write a story about internment camp," I said, "Hallelujah, this is what I want to hear." When somebody else from another ethnic group took that much interest to do research and write about a camp, that takes a lot of courage.

TI: And so you, so what you've done is you've actually inspired, by having, in some ways you could say Maggie has inspired, through you, by telling that story it's inspired other people to not only learn, but to create new things, too. That's a, again, it's a wonderful story.

SY: Well, I believe... a lot of times, you know... Fred Kochi recently gave a book to his aunt. She was in Heart Mountain. Now, chances are she never seen or heard about Maggie, but when she read the story, she pictured everything about Heart Mountain, the day she entered, the day she left, the activities and the social acts, because of the pictures, because of the story, it brought back a lot of memories. And I think, it's like any other story, it depends on how much imagination a person has, and I look at it, you know... I had a pug dog that I wrote a story about once. The title of that was Doggone Excuses People Make About Smoking, and there was nothing about anti-smoking, it was excuses people make about smoking, but this, you could eliminate the word "smoking," you could put down procrastination, you could talk about overweight, you could talk about you name it, any subject you so want, but I was ahead of my time about the smoking, because it was too, too much ahead of my time. But, being a Boys Club director, I believed in health, activities, physical fitness, and so forth. And so, even today, now, I'm still involved in activities, not as I used to, but just two weeks ago I walked to Santa Monica Mountain. It was only, like, eight miles, but the hard part was coming back on those steep hills. And, but I suffered because my knee hurts, and my back hurts and everything (due to arthritis).

TI: Well, you also said yesterday that you were playing basketball, I think, you played basketball...

SY: I did.

TI: And, Shig, so how old are you now?

SY: I'm seventy-seven. In June, I'll be seventy-eight. And it's not the age that matters. It's the quality of life, and using your brains. And what I like, in my activities, is association with people. Whether they like me or not, they have to accept me as I am, as an honest person, because when I tell the story, I could, I tell it the same way over and over, and I don't have to say, "I wonder what I said to Tom, because I don't want to cover up my excuses or lies or whatever, 'cause they're all the truth.

TI: Well, I'm glad because we document this on camera. So it's all done, but, you know, Shig, we're at the end of the interview. We've gone well over two-and-a-half hours, and I want to thank you so much for this.

SY: I want to thank you, and I wish Densho the very best, because you have one of the greatest reputation of all the people I know that does oral history, and I want this, all the oral history story to go out throughout the country because there's nothing better to tell the internmentship story better than this.

TI: Great, and I agree, and I'm so glad your story will be on there, so thank you very much.

SY: Thank you.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.