Hector Estrada: Unsung Hero of Crystal City
A version of this article originally appeared in Nichi Bei Weekly.
On Nov. 9 the Crystal City Pilgrimage Committee opened the first permanent exhibit dedicated to the wartime incarceration in the state of Texas. Funded by the Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Charitable Foundation, the exhibit titled “America’s Last WWII Concentration Camp,” is located inside the My Story Museum, a local history museum two hours south of San Antonio that also tells the story of Crystal City’s role in the Chicano Movement and the broader history of Zavala County. The museum’s ribbon-cutting ceremony attracted a crowd of more than 250 Texans that took place during the annual Crystal City Spinach Festival.
One of three core exhibits in the museum, “America’s Last WWII Concentration Camp” is based on research compiled by Hector Estrada, a retired plumber and Crystal City native. Since 2001, Estrada has devoted his retirement years to telling the story of the camp. In a recent interview, Estrada recalls how he did not learn about the wartime history despite going to elementary school in one of the former camp buildings. “I was born in 1946 in an area of Crystal City called El Chico. That area was loaded with old shacks that were used by migrant workers. We used to call it El Campo. They told us that was because it was a labor camp where all these migrant laborers were grouped together. As far as we knew, that’s all it had been, a labor camp.”
After graduating high school, Estrada got married and moved to San Jose, Calif. in 1969. It would take another three decades before he learned about the incarceration camp in his hometown that imprisoned approximately 4,000 people between 1942-1948. Estrada remembers the day that he first learned this history. “We were doing a job close to Japantown. We used to go eat at some of the restaurants and I saw that there was a Japanese American museum there. I went to visit it just before I retired and found out that Crystal City had actually been a detention camp.”
At the Japanese American Museum of San Jose, Estrada found a single picture frame with limited information about the Crystal City camp. The museum staff was unable to provide additional details beyond what was written in the display. Estrada continues, “We were never told in school about it. So when I found out, I decided to start researching. I was shocked and angry that I was never taught this history. I vowed to bring this history back to Crystal City. People need to know the terrible injustice that happened.”
The anger that Estrada felt motivated him to devote the bulk of his retirement years to researching the Crystal City camp history, eventually leading to the creation of the “America’s Last Concentration Camp” exhibit. For more than 10 years, Estrada spent his free time researching in university libraries in addition to county, state and federal government archives. Throughout this period Estrada shared his findings in a series of videos available to watch on his YouTube channel (t.ly/0om9Y).
Eventually, once he had accumulated enough materials, Estrada set about designing a public exhibit to be housed temporarily during the 2012 Spinach Festival at a building in Crystal City that his niece owned. Estrada recalls, “I shared my info with my niece Maribel and asked about using her building for the exhibit. As soon as she agreed to it, I bought plane tickets and flew to Texas to spend a week measuring up her building.” With a background in mechanical design, Estrada used the same AutoCAD software he had previously worked with to produce blueprints to design a 3-D model of the building and began plotting out his exhibit layout. Using his own resources, Estrada then purchased a professional grade large format printer to print photographs, images and wall displays up to 16-feet long. He then personally transported the materials by driving 26 hours from San Jose to Crystal City.
REMEMBERING CRYSTAL CITY INCARCERATION — During a panel discussion held at the My Story Museum on Nov. 10, Crystal City incarceration survivors Kaz Naganuma and Hiroshi Shimizu shared their childhood memories of life in the camp. Hector Estrada spoke in greater detail about how he learned the story of Crystal City and his motivations for putting together the exhibit. Then Ruben Salazar shared how the local high school students have made use of it in their class projects over the past decade. (L to R): Salazar, Estrada, Shimizu and Naganuma. photo by Kassandra Trevino
The exhibit was well received by local residents, many of whom learned about the history of the prison camp for the first time. After witnessing the exhibit, Ruben Salazar, a social studies teacher at Crystal City High School, became the caretaker of the photos, which he used as a classroom teaching resource. In 2019 and 2023 when the current iteration of the Crystal City Pilgrimage took place, Salazar mounted temporary displays of Estrada’s work at the local high school. Struck by the similarities in civil rights abuses faced by both communities, Salazar recalled, “We were treated the same way as Japanese Americans in the ‘50s and ‘60s. I was called a greaser, wetback, told to go back and punished for speaking Spanish in school.” Salazar was so moved by his interactions with Japanese Americans that he has since joined the pilgrimage committee.
Another key figure in bringing Estrada’s work into its current home is Crystal City Pilgrimage Committee Board Treasurer Victor Uno. When “America’s Last Concentration Camp” was remounted in 2019, it came as a surprise to the pilgrimage organizers. Uno was so moved that he sought out Estrada upon his return to California. After a cold call introduction, the two became friends and with Estrada’s blessing, the pilgrimage committee used his work as the basis of the current exhibit at My Story Museum. During a panel discussion held on Nov. 10 at the museum, Uno shared the following praise for Estrada, “I think he should have an honorary master’s degree … his exhibit was so well thought out. He talked about the World War II internment camp from its origins as a migrant labor camp to a concentration camp. And he honored the work of the migrant laborers by doing this. He knew what existed before and the hardship that migrant laborers had, and that history is a part of this museum now.”
Having been diagnosed with terminal lung disease, Estrada visited Crystal City for perhaps the last time to participate in the My Story Museum opening in November. When asked how he feels about his work being immortalized at the museum, Estrada reflected, “being a minority in a white dominated school district, I never imagined my name would be featured in a permanent museum collection. My intention was to have my work explained to the current students of my old school district. I do know that thanks to (the Crystal City Pilgrimage Committee), I will carry this with me to the last breath of my life.”
The Crystal City Pilgrimage Committee who are mostly based in the East Bay will be working with Crystal City locals over the next year to further develop the museum for a phase II expansion, tentatively scheduled to launch during the 2025 pilgrimage taking place Oct. 9-12.
My Story Museum — The Story of Us: Tres Historias en Crystal City is located at 224 E. Zavala St., Crystal City, Texas. It is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and is free to the public. For more information visit: https://www.crystalcitypilgrimage.org/.