the train to crystal city by jan jarboe russell

Many were wives or American-born children of men who’d been arrested and interned for being leaders in their immigrant communities. The Train to Crystal Cityįrom December 1942 to February 1948, more than 6,000 persons of German, Japanese and Italian descent spent some period of time confined in the 290-acre camp. The Crystal City camp, one of three DOJ camps in Texas, was the only one in the U.S. The second program-the Alien Enemy Control Unit program under the Department of Justice-imprisoned mainly German, Japanese or Italian citizens who were deemed threats to national security, often with dubious justification. The better known of the two, the War Relocation Authority, displaced 120,000 Japanese, more than half of them born in the United States, from Pacific-coast states. established two systems of internment camps. The camp was located about 120 miles southwest of San Antonio, but remains a little-known part of the state’s wartime history.ĭuring World War II, the U.S. Why should a person read about injustices perpetrated by her country in the distant past? To honor those who suffered? To inoculate against the repetition of errors? To strip the scales from her eyes and develop a more realistic, if more jaded, picture of her government?įor any of these reasons, Americans-and particularly Texans-should read Jan Jarboe Russell’s The Train to Crystal City: FDR’s Secret Prisoner Exchange Program and America’s Only Family Internment Camp During World War II. Jan Jarboe Russell reads from The Train to Crystal City on Monday, Jan.

The train to crystal city by jan jarboe russell