Screening and Conversation: Hello Maggie! with Animator Willie Ito

In the barren, sun-drenched plains of wartime Wyoming, during the darkest years of WWII, a young Japanese American boy in a concentration camp finds comfort and a flicker of hope in an unlikely friend: a lively and curious magpie named Maggie. Based on the real-life experiences of Shigeru Yabu and illustrated by the iconic Disney animator Willie Ito, Hello Maggie! is an animated story about love, survival, and resilience. Following a screening of the short film, Willie Ito will be joined by the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation’s Executive Director Aura Newlin, Board Chair Shirley Ann Higuchi, and Board Vice Chair Douglas Nelson, in a conversation moderated by Ann Burroughs, President and CEO of JANM. They will discuss the history behind the film and what comes next for places like Heart Mountain and JANM who are telling these difficult stories. This program is a partnership with the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation and the Japanese American National Museum. $5 General, FREE for JANM Members and Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation Members Japanese American National Museum In the barren, sun-drenched plains of wartime Wyoming, during the darkest years of WWII, a young Japanese American boy in a concentration camp finds comfort and a flicker of hope in an unlikely friend: a lively and curious magpie named Maggie. Based on the real-life experiences of Shigeru Yabu and illustrated by the iconic Disney animator Willie Ito, Hello Maggie! is an animated story about love, survival, and resilience. Following a screening of the short film, Willie Ito will be joined by the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation’s Executive Director Aura Newlin, Board Chair Shirley Ann Higuchi, and Board Vice Chair Douglas Nelson, in a conversation moderated by Ann Burroughs, President and CEO of JANM. They will discuss the history behind the film and what comes next for places like Heart Mountain and JANM who are telling these difficult stories. This program is a partnership with the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation and the Japanese American National Museum. Willie Ito began a 50-year career in animation in 1953 working on Disney’s iconic spaghetti-kissing scene in Lady and The Tramp. He later worked at other studios, including Warner Bros. Looney Tunes (Bugs Bunny, Coyote and Road Runner, and J. Michigan Frog), Hanna-Barbera (The Jetsons, The Flintstones, Scooby-Doo, Yogi Bear); Bob Clampett Productions (Beany and Cecil); and back to Disney in 1976 (The Wuzzles and Adventures of the Gummi Bears). He retired in 1999 as Director of International Character Art. Hello Maggie! is based on the 2007 children’s book of the same name, one of three illustrated by Ito. Ito is a recipient of the prestigious Windsor McCay Award from the Annies, Comic-Con’s Inkpot Award, and a Cartoonist of the Year Award from the Nemo Academy in Florence, Italy. He also holds Lifetime Achievement Awards from Animation Magazine and Spark Animation in Vancouver, Canada. Aura Sunada Newlin is a fourth-generation Wyomingite, fourth-generation Japanese American, and Executive Director for the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation. She is also on the board of directors for the National Consortium on Racial and Ethnic Fairness in the Courts. Newlin earned a BA in ethnomusicology from the University of Wyoming and an MA in medical anthropology from Case Western Reserve University. Now focusing on the anthropology of law, she will soon complete her PhD from Case Western Reserve University, where her dissertation focuses on harm and healing in the relationship between US citizens and the federal government. Aura’s work has been profiled by the Women in Wyoming podcast and gallery exhibit; the University of Wyoming’s Featured Alumni series; Wyoming PBS, and more. Shirley Ann Higuchi, JD, is the Chair of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation (HMWF) and the daughter of former incarcerees, the late Dr. William Iyeo Higuchi and Setsuko Saito Higuchi. Her American-born parents were children when they were incarcerated at Heart Mountain during World War II. Shirley’s pursuit of law stemmed from her feelings of discomfort toward how the U.S. judicial system treated her parents. She was elected Chair of the HMWF Board in 2009 and her proudest moment was unveiling the Foundation’s world-class, Smithsonian-affiliate Interpretive Center in August 2011 alongside journalist Tom Brokaw, the late Senators Daniel K. Inouye and Alan K. Simpson, and Secretary Norman Mineta. The Foundation also opened the Mineta Simpson Institute in July 2024, which was expertly guided by her vision. Higuchi is the author of Setsuko’s Secret: Heart Mountain and the Legacy of the Japanese American Incarceration. A former attorney with the American Psychological Association, she was first Asian American President Bar Association of the District of Columbia. Douglas W. Nelson is the retired President and CEO of the Annie E. Casey Foundation (AECF), which he led for more than twenty years. He is a leading