CRYSTAL CITY INTERNMENT CAMP TOKENS 上市 Deposited
The E-Sylum: Volume 6, Number 20, May 18, 2003, Article 16
CRYSTAL CITY INTERNMENT CAMP TOKENS
David Klinger wrote the following item for the MPCgram,
and with their permission we're reprinting it here. It
illustrates Len Augsberger's point about how fast the
Internet is growing. What I wrote the Money Talks article
there was very little information to be had about the camp
or its tokens, but now there is a nice web page picturing
them.Len wrote: "I recently read about money used at a
Japanese-American internment camp in Crystal City, Texas
during and just after WW II. I had never seen such money
which was described by Wayne Homren in an ANA "Money
Talks" script as follows: "The camp at Crystal City, TX, a
hundred miles southwest of San Antonio, was a converted
migrant farm labor camp. The facility housed entire families,
and held a peak population of over 3,000 people. Residents
of the camp were allotted a standard sum of money in fiber
tokens. These tokens could be spent for food, clothing, and
other items at the camp canteen. The tokens came in
denominations ranging from one cent to $5. When the camp
closed, all the tokens were supposed to be destroyed. But
a few of these tiny tokens survive today."These tokens are not mentioned in "WW II Remembered".
The inscription on the reverse of each of these tokens reads:
"Alien Detention Station, Crystal City, Texas". The obverse
shows value in letters and numbers.What surprised me during my research on this topic was
that this internment camp was not only used to house
Japanese-Americans but German-Americans as well. I was
not aware that over 11,000 German-Americans were interned
during WW II. I wonder if any of these German-Americans
received reparations as did the Japanese-Americans? In any
case, you can see these tokens at the following web site, along
with interesting info and links related to the German-American
internees.- 2003-05-18
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