The Train to Crystal City

December 1, 2014
During WWII, thousands of people of German, Italian, and Japanese descent living in the United States and Latin America were imprisoned as potential enemy aliens and forced to live in internment camps. Sometimes entire families were gathered together and shipped to a camp outside of Crystal City, Tex., to be traded for Americans imprisoned overseas. Russell (They Lived to Tell the Tale) draws on historical records and extensive interviews to revisit a confusing, shameful episode in American history. Using two American-born teenagers as her focal points—one of Japanese descent, the other German—she examines the process that transformed law-abiding Americans, regardless of citizenship, into internees and repatriated many to countries they’d never known. Russell pulls no punches describing the cost of war and the conditions internees endured. “The fundamental questions of citizenship, the status of aliens—indeed the definition of who is and who is not an American—are perennial. The travesty in Crystal City,” Russell notes, “is that in the effort to win the war... the cost to civil liberties was high.” Though Russell sometimes loses focus while delivering the full story in all its detail, it’s nevertheless a powerful piece. Agent: Amy Hughes, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner.

January 1, 2015

The "relocation camps" that housed Japanese Americans during World War II have received some attention, yet there were lesser-known internment camps during this period as well. Journalist Russell (They Lived To Tell the Tale) amply demonstrates both her research and writing skills on this largely overlooked topic by focusing on the only family camp for "enemy aliens." Most occupants of the camp, located in Crystal City, TX, were considered "enemy aliens" since, for a variety of reasons, they did not become naturalized citizens. This led to an inevitable dilemma between parents and children (some of whom were born in the United States and granted citizenship), as well as between fathers and mothers. To join their husbands in the camps, mothers had to agree to repatriation with their spouses to Germany or Japan along with their American-born children. The author explains how Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration used these families in exchange for American prisoners of war from Germany and Japan, essentially treating the families as wartime pawns. The author's investigation involves interviews with those from the Crystal City camp and the history of the bureaucrats who were involved. VERDICT Both scholars and general readers interested in World War II will agree, this book is a gripping story from start to finish. [See Prepub Alert, 7/21/14.]--William D. Pederson, Louisiana State Univ., Shreveport

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