America’s Last Concentration Camp: Crystal City
Exhibit Dates: May 20 – July 22, 2026
J-Sei Gallery, 1285 66th Street, Emeryville
Gallery Hours: M Tu Th Fr 2-5 pm, or by appointment: 510-654-4000
About the Exhibit
The Crystal City Pilgrimage Committee will premiere its national traveling exhibit, based on their permanent exhibit at the My Story Museum in Crystal City, Texas. Additional interpretive panels will depict stories of the individual families who were incarcerated at Crystal City. Crystal City Family Internment Camp, as it was called during the war, administered by the Department of Justice, held thousands of Japanese, Germans, and Italians in addition to Latin American residents of Axis nationalities.
Created as a family reunification center for immigrants arrested under the Alien Enemies Act in 1942, Crystal City remained open until 1948, long after WWII ended. Several hundred families were moved to Crystal City after their applications for reunification were approved. Several hundred families were moved to Crystal City after their applications for reunification were approved. In some cases, families waited a year or more to be reunited with their husband or father.
Crystal City was also used as a detention facility for individuals awaiting deportation in a prisoner of war exchange with Axis countries. The State Department devised a secret program called “Quiet Passages” to exchange prisoners held in DOJ prison camps for US civilians held behind enemy lines. Some prisoners went willingly, others were forcibly deported to Axis war zones. This included some children with US birthright citizenship whose parents were ineligible for naturalization, and Japanese Latin Americans who were kidnapped and brought to the US.
“By sharing our nation’s hidden histories and the powerful stories of survivors, we can begin to undo the historical amnesia that allows our government to harm children and families today,” said Crystal City Pilgrimage President Kaz Naganuma, whose family was forced to leave a flourishing laundry business in Peru and travel for three weeks by boat and train before being imprisoned in Texas.
Newly Released Memoir
Available on 5/23
Libia Hideko Maoki Yamamoto was a young girl when she and her family were forced from Peru to the Crystal City Internment Camp. Imprisoned with other families from Latin America, Libia vividly recounts her family’s experiences in Peru and in America’s Last Concentration Camp.
“Detour to Crystal City: Memories of a Japanese Latin American WWII Internment camp Survivor,” details the life of her Japanese immigrant family from their arrival and settlement in Peru to their forcible removal and incarceration in a Department of Justice Internment camp in Crystal City, Texas.
Libia attended an adult writing class at J-SEI, facilitated by Grace Morizawa. She was already a born leader and spokesperson in the Japanese Latin American community. She served as co-founder, advisor, and treasurer for the Japanese Peruvian Oral History Project, the Campaign for Justice, Redress for JLAs Now!
PHOTO: George Kumemaro Uno teaches English to Japanese Peruvian imprisoned students at Crystal City. The students from Latin American countries only spoke Spanish and/or Japanese.
Exhibit Programs
May 23, 1-3 PM – Opening Program
June 20, 1-3 PM – From WWII Kidnapping to Reparations: The Japanese Latin American Experience Resonates Today
July 11, 1-3 PM – One Fighting Irishman: Wayne M. Collins
Opening Program
Saturday, May 23, 1 pm
The opening program will include a panel presentation with survivors Kaz Naganuma, Hiroshi Fukuda, Heidi Gurcke Donald and the showing of the short documentary, Then Becoming Now.
Then Becoming Now (2019, 24 min.), directed by Emiko Omori, follows the journey of three men who went from incarcerated children to social activists. Seventy-seven years ago Hiroshi “Shim” Shimizu, Kaz Naganuma, and Hiroshi Fukuda met as toddlers in the Crystal City Family Internment Camp. Today, their childhood experiences motivate them to join the protest of current immigration policies of detaining and separating families.
The gallery will be open until 4 pm for viewing of the exhibit.
From WWII Kidnapping to Reparations: The Japanese Latin American Experience Resonates Today
Saturday, June 20, 1-3pm
The Japanese Latin American wartime and redress experiences and their relevance in today’s fight against anti-immigrant persecution and anti-democracy authoritarianism will be explored with a panel discussion, including Grace Shimizu, Jeff Matsuoka, and Bekki Shibayama of the Campaign for Justice: Redress NOW for Japanese Latin Americans! and the Japanese Peruvian Oral History Project, and with the U.S. premiere of film clips produced by Casey Peek of Peek Media.
“One Fighting Irishman” Film Screening and Discussion
Saturday, July 11, 1-3pm
Filmmaker Sharon Yamato will discuss her film on lawyer Wayne M. Collins and his defense of Japanese Americans at Tule Lake, as well as his representation of Japanese Latin Americans at the Crystal City Family Internment Camp. Collins’s son, Wayne M. Collins will also speak about his father’s work as well as his own efforts for Tule Lake renunciates.
ONE FIGHTING IRISHMAN, a 30-minute documentary, narrated by George Takei, tells the story of the man who rescued more than 5,500 people from being deported to a country upon which many of them had never stepped foot.
At a time when wartime hysteria and racist hatred of American citizens of Japanese ancestry was sweeping the country, one attorney stood above the rest to fiercely defend the Constitutional rights of those the government considered the worst of the lot—those accused of being disloyal.
America’s Last Concentration Camp at the My Story Museum in Crystal City, Texas opened in October, 2025.