In Crystal City lie the remains of an enormous swimming pool. The circular structure, which stretched for 250 feet across and was originally an irrigation tank, was filled in long ago. Now all that remains is a field of cracked concrete, overgrown with grass and weeds parched by the South Texas sun, in this small town about two hours southwest of San Antonio. In the 1940s, the swimming pool was an oasis for the more than three thousand people of Japanese, German, Italian, and Latin American descent who were locked up at the Crystal City internment camp—up until the drowning of two Japanese Peruvian girls in 1944 imbued the spot with tragedy. I’m here, not far from a statue of Popeye guarding city hall, for…
The post The Forgotten Poets (and Unlikely Alliance) of Crystal City appeared first on Texas Monthly.
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