H5F: Jan Jarboe Russell – The Train to Crystal City

Published: March 11, 2016, 5:01 a.m.

March 11, 2016 - Today’s history author, Jan Jarboe Russell, revisits the dark period of World War Two when President Franklin Roosevelt signed the infamous Executive order 9066. You may recall that we interviewed Kermit Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt's great-great-grandson and a distant cousin to Franklin, about his novel Allegiance, covering the fight over these deportations at the Supreme Court. From 1942 to 1948, trains delivered thousands of civilians from the United States and Latin America to Crystal City, Texas, a small desert town at the southern tip of Texas. The trains carried Japanese, German, Italian immigrants and their American-born children, who were all U.S. citizens. Ms. Russell takes a closer look at this travesty of justice in her non-fiction book: The Train to Crystal City: FDR's Secret Prisoner Exchange Program and America's Only Family Internment Camp During World War II. You can learn more about her work at JanJarboeRussell.com, or by following her on Twitter @JarboeJan. Simon & Schuster's History in Five Friday.  It’s the perfect way to kick off your modern weekend… with people from the past.