by Tom Kawakami, as told to Ruth Sasaki
“Crystal City was home to more than 4,750 prisoners of Japanese, German, and Italian nationality or ancestry.”
My wife Hana’s father, Toyoji Abe, was the publisher of the New World Sun (Shin Sekai), one of San Francisco’s two main Japanese-language newspapers before the War. After Pearl Harbor, he was arrested as a “dangerous enemy alien,” and the rest of the Abe family (wife Yuka, son Victor, and daughters Sophie, Alice, Martha, and Hana) were incarcerated in Topaz Relocation Center in Utah.
Over a year later, in early 1944, Mrs. Abe and fifteen-year-old Hana, the youngest daughter, joined Mr. Abe in Crystal City, Texas, the government concentration camp for families that lay west of San Antonio near the Mexican border. By that time, Hana’s older sisters had resettled in other cities in the Midwest. Between mid-1942 through 1945, Crystal City was home to more than 4,750 prisoners of Japanese, German, and Italian nationality or ancestry. Two-thirds of the incarcerees were Japanese, Japanese American, or Japanese Latin Americans.
In Crystal City, Mr. Abe was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Hana and her mother accompanied him on a long car trip across Texas to Dallas, yet another unfamiliar city, where he received treatment. After his treatment, the Abes returned to Crystal City; but not long after their return, Mr. Abe died. So Hana and her mother remained in Crystal City by themselves until the end of the War.
Some Crystal City residents thought it was nicer than Topaz because they had an actual house, unlike the dusty barracks with cots in Topaz. Hana, looking back, always thought of Topaz as a relatively happy place compared to Crystal City because she had some fun times with friends; and her father, even though separated from his family, was still alive. To her, Crystal City was a place of sadness.
About the contributor: Tom was born in Salt Lake City, UT. His father worked in the coal mines of Utah, became the manager of the Japanese labor camp, and later, owned a restaurant in Salt Lake City. As Utah residents, Tom’s family was not interned during WWII; but he remembers playing basketball against “a bunch of Topaz Nisei” (second generation) in high school. After serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, Tom settled in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he met his wife, Hana Abe. Tom passed away in 2024.
Copyright 2018, Tom Kawakami. All rights reserved.