Survivors of WW2-era internment camp south of San Antonio gather to remember the injustice

Survivors of the Crystal City Enemy Detention Facility and their descendants visit the site during a recent pilgrimage. Credit: Dean Zach

Last Saturday, survivors of a World War II-era concentration camp located in the scrubland southwest of San Antonio came together, along with their descendants, for a day of remembrance, healing, and bridge-building with local community members.

The Crystal City Enemy Detention Facility around an hour and a half from the Alamo City imprisoned more than 3,000 people of Japanese, German and Italian descent taken from their homes in the U.S. and Latin America from 1942 to 1948. At its peak, it was the largest U.S. family internment camp.

In a ceremony held on the concrete slab left behind by the camp pool where two Japanese Peruvian girls drowned in 1943, the 200 survivors and descendants sat alongside Crystal City’s mayor and city manager while the names of 12 internees, all of whom died in the camp of causes both natural and unnatural, were read in prayer.

Pilgrims, who ranged from young children to octogenarians, came from places as far-flung as Japan, Peru and San Francisco to the town of 6,000 known for being a hotspot for Chicano activism in the ’60s and ’70s. The Crystal City walkouts of 1969-70 protested anti-Latino discrimination in schools.

This shared history of injustice brought former internees and former activists together. The Pilgrimage and a new local museum exhibit on the camp were organized by a committee consisting not just of survivors but Crystal City citizens including Diana Palacios, a bail bondswoman and museum owner, and Ruben Salazar, a history teacher at Crystal City High School.

Salazar said the missions of the Pilgrimage Committee and the people of Crystal City are the same: to keep their stories of surviving injustice alive.

“We want this story to continue,” Salazar said. “We want it to be exposed, we want everybody to know what actually happened here. We want to put Crystal City on the map.”

At Crystal City’s My Story Museum, Satoshi Kojima, a former internee who was born in the camp, discussed the importance of the pilgrimage.

Pilgrims to the Crystal City event examine a model of the camp at a museum. Credit: Dean Zach

“I don’t know how many more years I’ll be able to be here,” he said. “Which is why it’s good to see so many young people here who can carry on the legacy of why the camps matter.”

The theme of this year’s pilgrimage, “Neighbors Not Enemies,” highlighted the 80-year-old injustices in the context of “present-day attacks on immigrant communities,” according to the Pilgrimage Committee’s website.

The pilgrimage also included educational events held in San Antonio, including a panel on the Trump Administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act.

Saturday’s pilgrimage was the first since the second Trump Administration took office and the White House expanded efforts to detain and deport U.S. and non-U.S. citizens alike, including at the Dilley Immigration Processing Facility.

That site 40 minutes east of Crystal City is the largest family detention camp in the U.S., and it’s been plagued by reports of inhumane conditions and overcrowding.

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Survivors of WW2-era internment camp south of San Antonio gather to remember the injustice

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