AUSTIN, Texas —
Shocked by the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that propelled the United States into World War II, thousands of Japanese, German, and Italian citizens in the U.S. were classified as Enemy Aliens and detained by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) through its Alien Enemy Control Unit.
Texas hosted three of these confinement sites, administered by the Immigration and Naturalization Service and in association with the Department of State, at Crystal City, Kenedy, and Seagoville. In addition, two U.S. Army temporary detention stations were located at Dodd Field in Fort Sam Houston (San Antonio) and Fort Bliss (El Paso).
Thanks to a grant from the National Park Service’s Japanese American Confinement Sites (JACS) Grant Program in November 2011, the Texas Historical Commission (THC) released a full-color print brochure detailing the Crystal City Family Internment Camp, which was met with great enthusiasm. Due in large part to keen interest in this brochure and its contents, the THC, with the support of JACS, will release a companion piece to its Crystal City brochure this month that covers the four remaining internment camps in Texas during World War II. The 12-page full-color edition provides the public with a deeper understanding of the five Texas confinement sites, and how the DOJ camps differ from War Relocation Authority camps, where thousands of Japanese Americans from the U.S. West Coast and Hawaii were incarcerated in Texas and across the country.
For more information, or to request a copy, contact the THC’s Military Sites Program Coordinator William McWhorter at 512.463.5833 or william.mcwhorter@thc.state.tx.us.
