Crystal City, Texas Family Internment Camp

Crystal City, Texas Family Internment Camp

A current marker, funded privately and placed at the Crystal City, Texas Family Internment Camp in 1985, inaccurately states that only Japanese American civilian prisoners were held at this site during World War II. German and Japanese Latin Americans and at least one Italian Latin American family were housed here, as were German and Japanese American families.

The decision to intern Latin American families at Crystal City was based on the theory that the temperatures, which frequently reach 120º during the summer, but are considered mild by winter standards, would be similar to the countries from which they came.

Originally a migrant labor camp, the INS began expanding the site in the fall of 1942, anticipating the need to intern large numbers of enemy aliens and their families. The first internees, of German ethnicity, arrived on December 12, 1942, and were expected to work on construction. The camp provided different types of housing, cottages and centrally located facilities and the basic needs of families.

At first food was brought to each family, but by September 1943 internees were issued a new form of camp money, “coupon checks,” a token system devised by camp officials to allow inmates to purchase needed foodstuffs or clothing items at a general store. Milk and ice continued to be delivered. Originally, a family of two adults with two small children was allotted $6.00 worth of coupons per month. In 1944 the amount was raised to $6.50.

Security for the camp was provided by two sets of guards. A Surveillance Division patrolled the fence line and provided the armed guards for the towers, while an Internal Security Division operated a small police force inside the compound twenty-four hours a day

In the first winters, mud was everywhere. The winter of 1942-43 was the coldest on record in the area, with snow on the cactus and icicles hanging from roof eves.

The summers brought intense heat and frequent dust devils. Internees encountered scorpions, red ants, rattlesnakes, and other insect and animal life they’d never known before. Sunburns and heat rashes were common.
Internees were employed in various camp enterprises, for ten cents an hour salary. A group of men cleared water hyacinths out of an old reservoir, which was then used as both as a reservoir and a swimming pool. Over the years, the camp became a small town, complete with grocery stores, butcher shop, furniture and mattress factory, beauty and barber shop, fire department, etc.

When first opened, there were few diversions from the monotony. A perimeter road, dusty in summer, awash with mud in the winter, could be walked. A small library of donated books was available. A popular diversion was dreaming over Montgomery Ward (known as “monkey ward”) catalogues. Originally, women shared a few sewing machines, making curtains and children’s clothing. Owning cameras was banned until some time later. Movies were occasionally shown outdoors, against a building wall, in the early days. As the population swelled, internees were able to attend movies twice a week, swim once the pool was complete, and use their own funds to plant gardens around their dwellings.

A Supervisor of Education had been hired in April 1942, to plan the development of a school system. Setting up these schools and getting adequate teaching staff was challenging. Teachers fluent in English, Spanish, German, or Japanese were needed to work with the children. Both a German and a Japanese school were established, and by the autumn of 1943, an official school, based on Texas educational regulations, was in place for those students wishing an American education. Nursery schools and kindergartens were begun as soon as the camp opened and were run by the internees.

The Crystal City camp was considered the show place of the internment program, so much so that the INS made a propaganda movie about it in the mid-1940s.

From its inception through June 30, 1945, the Crystal City camp inducted 4,751 internees (including 153 births). Of this number, 954 Germans were repatriated in two movements (February 1944 and January 1945), and 169 Japanese were repatriated (Sent back to country of origin) in August 1943. One hundred thirty-eight internees have been released or paroled, 84 interned at large, 73 transferred to other facilities, and 17 have died. In practically all cases, the women and children were voluntary internees.

The Crystal City, TX Family Internment Camp closed in February 1948, and the remaining internees, most or all of German ethnicity, were sent to Ellis Island, N.Y.

http://www.gaic.info/internment_camp.html