About the Exhibit:

Crystal City: America’s Last WWII Concentration Camp” is a traveling exhibit that tells the story of wartime incarceration in South Texas.

During World War II the United States government imprisoned over 125,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry. An additional 11,000 Germans and over 400 Italians were also interned. Men, women, and children were stripped of their rights and forced into prison camps for an average length of 3.5 years.

Crystal City Family Internment Camp is unique in the larger context of these events. Operating from 1942-1948, this prison was created to reunite families separated across multiple detention sites. By the time they arrived in Crystal City, most were bound for repatriation to Japan, Germany, or Italy. Many would be traded in Prisoner-of-War (POW) exchanges to retrieve US civilians trapped behind enemy lines when the war began. This site was also used to imprison Latin Americans of Japanese, German, and Italian heritage, who were kidnapped from Central and South America. Some were forcibly deported to Axis countries, while others navigated the immigration courts and won their right to remain in the US.

This exhibit covers topics related to daily life within the Crystal City prison camp. Through individual family narratives, it explores the journeys of Japanese American, German American, and Latin American internees before and after the war. At its core, the exhibit raises important questions about citizenship, ethnicity, and belonging during a time of conflict.

Produced by Crystal City Pilgrimage Committee, the exhibit was funded by Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Charitable Foundation, Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program of the National Park Service, Japanese American Community Foundation, and the Gerbode Foundation.