Read Online The Train to Crystal City: FDR's Secret Prisoner Exchange by Jan Jarboe Russell - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jan Jarboe Russell
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persons who lived in San Antonio was of German heritage. The central street in town was King William Street, known by German Texans as Kaiserwilhelmstrasse. The street was lined with stone mansions built by the wealthy Germans in San Antonio who formed the mercantile class. Until 1942, San Antonio had a German newspaper, the Freie Presse für Texas , which was closed when war broke out. German Texans in San Antonio who were involved in German cultural and singing societies became afraid when they learned that the FBI had arrested several hundred German Texans. Newspapers in San Antonio and Dallas asked their readers to be on the lookout for German agents. The readers responded. An FBI agent in Dallas stated that citizen reports hadled to the arrest of sixty-one Germans, thirty-six Italians, and seventeen Japanese.
On the day that Harrison arrived in Crystal City, the internment of enemy aliens was well under way. Unlike in some less conservative towns and cities on the East Coast, Texas welcomed the idea of incarcerating suspected spies. Five internment camps were in Texas. The camp in Seagoville was occupied by single women and a few families, and the camp in Kenedy incarcerated only men. In San Antonio, a prisoner-of-war camp at Dodd Army Airfield at Fort Sam Houston held primarily German and Italian men. In El Paso, German and Italian prisoners of war were held at Fort Bliss. If the proposed family camp were to be located on the East Coast, opposition would be strong. Harrison understood political nuances and recognized that the establishment of a multinational family internment camp would not provoke hostility in Crystal City. Indeed, it would be welcomed. The farmworkers would be moved out, replaced by Japanese, German, and Italian enemy aliens and their families.
Surveying the site of the migrant-labor camp, Harrison noted what amenities existed. The site had been used to confine Mexican migrant laborers during their work stays, as well as illegal aliens arrested for border violations, and the facilities were stark. None of the 41 cottages or 118 one-room shelters had running water. The workers used outdoor privies. They slept on cots and hung their work clothes on nails.
The land itself was an expression of the American frontier. There were no paved roads. Most of it was farms and ranches, far from large cities. The social setting was western: intolerance, vigilantism, with economic competition the rule. When Mexican laborers at the camp failed to produce, some ranchers resorted to locking them in tiny chicken coops. Mexicans were viewed by Anglos as a subservient class, cogs in the wheels of business and daily life. Mexicans, despite their majority status and historic ties to the land, played the role of strangers in town.
From Gutierrez’s point of view, the camp fit into the political andeconomic patterns that were already in place in Crystal City: “Before the war and after, Zavala County existed as a kind of stable dictatorship with the Anglos in charge of the majority population, which was Mexican. As a boy, I understood that I lived in a city in which my Mexican heritage was being subtracted from me, slowly and surely. The Anglos called this process ‘assimilation.’ It did not occur to them that we Mexicans were perfectly happy the way we were. Assimilation meant: We learn to act like Anglos. We don’t get to be ourselves. We were, in effect, subjects on land that was native to us.” The irony was that the majority of German, Japanese, and Italian nationals and their American-born children who were later interned in Crystal City welcomed assimilation. Indeed, they wanted desperately to be Americans. But for the accident of their countries of origin, they would never have found themselves in Crystal City.
Harrison had many practical issues to consider: how many miles of roads would need to be built, how many more cottages erected, the cost of a barbed-wire security fence and a guard tower suitable for
On the day that Harrison arrived in Crystal City, the internment of enemy aliens was well under way. Unlike in some less conservative towns and cities on the East Coast, Texas welcomed the idea of incarcerating suspected spies. Five internment camps were in Texas. The camp in Seagoville was occupied by single women and a few families, and the camp in Kenedy incarcerated only men. In San Antonio, a prisoner-of-war camp at Dodd Army Airfield at Fort Sam Houston held primarily German and Italian men. In El Paso, German and Italian prisoners of war were held at Fort Bliss. If the proposed family camp were to be located on the East Coast, opposition would be strong. Harrison understood political nuances and recognized that the establishment of a multinational family internment camp would not provoke hostility in Crystal City. Indeed, it would be welcomed. The farmworkers would be moved out, replaced by Japanese, German, and Italian enemy aliens and their families.
Surveying the site of the migrant-labor camp, Harrison noted what amenities existed. The site had been used to confine Mexican migrant laborers during their work stays, as well as illegal aliens arrested for border violations, and the facilities were stark. None of the 41 cottages or 118 one-room shelters had running water. The workers used outdoor privies. They slept on cots and hung their work clothes on nails.
The land itself was an expression of the American frontier. There were no paved roads. Most of it was farms and ranches, far from large cities. The social setting was western: intolerance, vigilantism, with economic competition the rule. When Mexican laborers at the camp failed to produce, some ranchers resorted to locking them in tiny chicken coops. Mexicans were viewed by Anglos as a subservient class, cogs in the wheels of business and daily life. Mexicans, despite their majority status and historic ties to the land, played the role of strangers in town.
From Gutierrez’s point of view, the camp fit into the political andeconomic patterns that were already in place in Crystal City: “Before the war and after, Zavala County existed as a kind of stable dictatorship with the Anglos in charge of the majority population, which was Mexican. As a boy, I understood that I lived in a city in which my Mexican heritage was being subtracted from me, slowly and surely. The Anglos called this process ‘assimilation.’ It did not occur to them that we Mexicans were perfectly happy the way we were. Assimilation meant: We learn to act like Anglos. We don’t get to be ourselves. We were, in effect, subjects on land that was native to us.” The irony was that the majority of German, Japanese, and Italian nationals and their American-born children who were later interned in Crystal City welcomed assimilation. Indeed, they wanted desperately to be Americans. But for the accident of their countries of origin, they would never have found themselves in Crystal City.
Harrison had many practical issues to consider: how many miles of roads would need to be built, how many more cottages erected, the cost of a barbed-wire security fence and a guard tower suitable for
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