Stop Repeating History: Survivors of Crystal City WWII Internment Camp to protest outside Dilley Family Detention Center
Protest to draw parallels between the incarceration of Japanese American families during WWII and the incarceration of Central American asylum-seekers
WHAT: Pilgrimage and protest
WHO: Japanese Internment Camp survivors and descendants
WHEN: March 30, 2019, 2–4PM CT
WHERE: 300 El Rancho Way, Dilley, TX 78017
A group of Japanese American and Japanese Peruvian survivors, formerly incarcerated at the Crystal City Family Internment Camp during World War II, will make a pilgrimage to the former site of the Crystal City Family Internment Camp where people of Japanese ancestry were held for indefinite detention during World War II.
Following a memorial service in Crystal City that honors the more than 4,000 people held there between 1942-1948, the group will proceed to Dilley, TX, to stage a peaceful protest at 2 p.m. at the South Texas Family Residential Center, where approximately one thousand Central American women and children seeking lawful asylum are being confined. The event is co-sponsored by the Crystal City Pilgrimage Committee and Grassroots Leadership.
As a result of the Japanese internment camps, more than 4,000 men, women, and children were incarcerated as a result of racism, wartime hysteria, and the failure of political leadership. The purpose of the pilgrimage is to honor all who suffered the long-term social, economic, and psychological consequences of unjust incarceration.
Survivors and descendants recall the human rights violations of their community during World War II and peacefully protest the repetition of unlawful mass incarceration. Among their demands are humane treatment for the imprisoned and compassion for immigrants and refugees at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas where mothers and children are being incarcerated while seeking asylum in the United States.
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Grassroots Leadership is an Austin, Texas-based national organization that works for a more just society where prison profiteering, mass incarceration, deportation, and criminalization are things of the past. Follow us @Grassroots_News.
