The next meeting of the Japanese American Museum of San Jose's (JAMsj) book club will be to discuss Jan Jarboe Russell's book, The Train to Crystal City: FDR's Secret Prisoner Exchange Program and America's Only Family Internment Camp During World War II . Crystal City was the center of a government prisoner exchange program called "quiet passage." During the course of the war, hundreds of prisoners (Japanese, German, and Italian immigrants, as well as their American-born children) were exchanged for other, more important Americans-diplomats, businessmen, soldiers, physicians, and missionaries-behind enemy lines in Japan and Germany.

Focusing her story on two American-born teenage girls who were interned, Russell uncovers the details of their years spent in the camp, the struggles of their fathers, their families' subsequent journeys to war-devastated Germany and Japan, and their years-long attempt to survive and return to the United States. Although this little-known event in American history has long been kept quiet, The Train to Crystal City reveals the war-time hysteria against the Japanese and Germans in America, the secrets of FDR's tactics to rescue high-profile POWs in Germany and Japan, and how the definition of American citizenship changed under the pressure of war.

Amazon already carries the book. Books will be available soon at the JAMsj museum store.

  The book club meets at 1:00 p.m. the first Saturday of every other month at JAMsj. Meetings are open to the general public, and books are available for purchase at the museum store. Questions? Contact Aggie Idemoto at (408) 294-3138 or aggie@jamsj.org .

Join the discussion: Saturday, August 1 , 2015 1:00 pm

The Book club is free with admission to the museum (non-members $5, and seniors over 65 $3, JAMsj members and children under 12 free)

No

RSVP needed.