The incarceration camp in Crystal City, Texas turned into an international tent city, according to LMT .
At its peak, it held nearly 3,400 prisoners including many deported from Latin American countries. Crystal City was originally intended for Japanese American prisoners, but soon held many Germans and Italians.
Most of the Japanese from Latin America held at the camp came from Peru. According to Wikipedia, the camp was turned over to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. By 1944, half of the 2,100 Japanese at the camp were from Latin America.
Germans and Italians were separated from the Japanese by ethnicity. Many of those imprisoned were repatriated to their native countries after the war ended.
Crystal City is one of eight such camps in which Japanese, Germans and Italians were held. The others are Fort Lincoln, Fort Missoula, Missouri; Fort Stanton, New Mexico; Kenedy, Texas; Kooskia, Idaho; Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Seagoville, Texas. It is listed in a separate group from the better known camps which imprisoned exclusively Japanese and Japanese Americans. Those include Gila River, Arizona; Granada War or Amache, Colorado; Heart Mountain, Wyoming; Jerome, Arkansas; Manzanar, California; Minidoka, Idaho; Poston, Arizona; Rohwer, Arkansas; Topaz, Utah; and Tule Lake, California.
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Crystal City was named to the National Register of Historic Places in August, 2014.
