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Japanese Americans and Mexican Americans work together to open museum in Crystal City Texas featuring Internment Camp exhibit![]()
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The above image is an artist rendering of the exhibit space. ![]()
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The Crystal City Pilgrimage Committee, a group of Japanese American and Japanese Peruvian incarceration survivors and their descendants, are preparing to open the first permanent exhibit dedicated to their experiences in Texas during World War II. Between 1942 and 1948, the little-known Crystal City US Department of Justice site held thousands of Japanese and German nationals, along with their US-born family members. The camp also imprisoned thousands of Latin American families of Japanese ancestry who were extradited from 13 countries in Central and South America as part of a prisoner of war exchange program. The Crystal City detention center exhibit titled “America’s Last WWII Concentration Camp” and funded by the Tomoye & Henri Takahashi Charitable Foundation, will open during the Crystal City Spinach Festival on Saturday, November 9, where it will be housed at the My Story Museum - The Story of Us: Tres Historias en Crystal City. ![]()
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Located in South Texas two hours Southwest of San Antonio, Crystal City is currently home to a population of approximately 6,500 who identified as over 95% Hispanic on the 2020 US Census. Known as the “Spinach Capitol of the World,” and home to the nation’s largest spinach-growing operation, Crystal City also played a significant role during the Chicano Movement as the site of numerous student protests in 1969 that led to school reform and election victories by working-class Mexican American farm laborers who became leaders of the progressive political group The Raza Unida Party. ![]()
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My Story Museum is the brainchild of former city manager Diana Palacios – herself one of the 1969 student protest leaders, who helped organize a series of school walkouts in response to the unequal treatment that Mexican Americans were receiving at that time. Palacios imagines the museum as a way to bring local history to life for both local residents and out-of-town visitors. Exhibits will feature topics related to Crystal City’s role in the Chicano Movement, the history of Zavala County, a wall honoring local veterans of foreign wars, and the WWII internment camp.![]()
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My Story Museum will host its grand opening on Saturday November 9 from 4-8pm CT. The following day on Sunday, November 10 from 12-2pm CT a panel discussion will be hosted at the museum including former internees Kaz Naganuma and Hiroshi Shimizu alongside Crystal City community leaders Diana Palacios and Ruben Salazar will explore the shared connections between the Japanese and Mexican American communities that have allowed this project to flourish. ![]()
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My Story Museum - The Story of Us: Tres Historias en Crystal City is located at 224 E. Zavala Street, Crystal City Texas 98839.![]()
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Read more here:![]()
News — Crystal City Pilgrimage
www.crystalcitypilgrimage.org
CRYSTAL CITY, TX – (October 1, 2024) – The Crystal City Pilgrimage Committee, a group of Japanese American and Japanese Peruvian incarceration survivors and their descendants, are preparing to ope...