Italian Americans persecuted during WW II in the US

[dhermann1]

Here's something I was completely unaware of. But I must say, this doesn't shock me. Seems some of the greatest generation weren't so great.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-italians-20100823,0,2551162.story

 

[Widebrim]

Dan, thanks for posting this, although we should keep in mind that a small number of Italian nationals were interned, while the others in California were solely placed on restriction. I have a book on the subject, "Una Storia Segreta" (A Secret Story or History), and have been aware of this piece of history for some years. It's true that previously it was common practice to "round up" or at least keep a watch on those who were considered "enemy aliens," but as the story points out, these "security measures" were not even attempted on the East Coast, due to the enormous number of Italian nationals there. And, as U.S. Atty. Gen. Francis Biddle said in late 1942, when most of the restrictions (not internments) ended, "We found that 600,000 enemy aliens were, in fact, not enemies." (Which is one reason why about 500,000 of their sons and daughters served in the U.S. Armed Forces during WWII.) At any rate, it is a chapter in U.S. history that Americans should be made aware of, whatever one's opinion of it.

-Lee

 

[LizzieMaine]

California, for all its hippy-dippy image today, was a very hard-line place in the early forties -- and it tended to be whipped into a froth at the slightest provocation by its newspapers, especially the Hearst rags, which never met a xenophobic cause they didn't like. This had a lot to do with the whole internment-camp phenomenon.

 

[Richard Warren]

Just perhaps the "fault" for the American treatment of citizens of a belligerent state lies with the fascist bastards who inspired and allied themselves with Hitler et al.

Any state with an interest in self preservation will monitor and restrict the activities of enemy aliens.

I do not see any mistreatment documented in the article that needs to be apologized for.

The references to the current state of affairs are particularly grotesque.

 

[Italian-wiseguy]

Just perhaps the "fault" for the American treatment of citizens of a belligerent state lies with the fascist bastards who inspired and allied themselves with Hitler et al.

Any state with an interest in self preservation will monitor and restrict the activities of enemy aliens.

I do not see any mistreatment documented in the article that needs to be apologized for.

The references to the current state of affairs are particularly grotesque.

I don't quite agree with you, and not because I'm italian
(actually, as I stated elsewhere, my family was antifascist and had to face internment in prison here...)

First of all, I don't think foreign nationals should be blamed for their government, even (or especially) when it's a dictatorial one
(despite propaganda, fascist Italy had NOT free elections, and citizens couldn't change their government... as for who put Mussolini to power, the one to blame was the King of Italy, who could easily have stopped the pathetic "March on Rome", if he only would...)

I can easily understand on the other hand that a Government may need to keep an eye on the activities of aliens belonging to an enemy State; can't understand however how this can be achieved effectively through mass measures, especially when they are so openly mis-directed as in the case of italian-americans families.

As for the reference to current affairs, I happen to know and have friendships with people of many nationalities, including people coming (sometime escaping) from some dictatorship we frequently hear about on the News...
and I can easily see a relation with current situation, if I imagine them put in internment or in restrictment basing only on their nationality (or religious faith)

Ciao!

 

[Beaubeau]

They also detained Germans as well.

We weren't above locking anybody up if we could help it.

 

[The Lonely Navigator]

On a some what related note - if one reads about the Arandora Star (sunk by U 47 in the summer of 1940) one may find interesting information.

There is a book called The Star of Shame that deals with the situation. In the book it was stated that she was an armed ship and therefore a legitimate target.

 

[Tomasso]

California, for all its hippy-dippy image today, was a very hard-line place in the early forties --

An old timer in the railroad biz once told me that during the depression California authorities would meet incoming trains and interview nonresidents for proof of employment, financial wherewithal, or established family relations and without one of those you were put on the next train out of state. He said that California was the only state in which this occurred.

 

[AmateisGal]

Out on the plains of western Nebraska, the sheriff came and took away my Italian great-grandfather's short wave radio during the war. Not sure if it was even possible for them to have contacted any relatives in Italy from such a distance, but I guess the threat of them doing it was enough. Thankfully, though, I don't think the family endured any other hardship than that. Western Nebraska was a pretty quiet place.

 

[Aristaeus]

Just perhaps the "fault" for the American treatment of citizens of a belligerent state lies with the fascist bastards who inspired and allied themselves with Hitler et al.

Any state with an interest in self preservation will monitor and restrict the activities of enemy aliens.

I do not see any mistreatment documented in the article that needs to be apologized for.

The references to the current state of affairs are particularly grotesque.

You hit the nail right on the head.

First of all, I don't think foreign nationals should be blamed for their government, even (or especially) when it's a dictatorial one
(despite propaganda, fascist Italy had NOT free elections, and citizens couldn't change their government...

Yes they should be blamed, and yes they can change their government by any means necessary. Fact is most Italians supported Mussolini until the war started going bad and didn't seem to have a problem with changeing their gov't when Allied Armies were knocking on the front door with the intent of occupying Italy as a conquered Axis State. Italians threw Mussolini under the bus and then acted like they were being liberated.
I lived in Italy for three years and there is no shortage of portaits of Mussolini hanging in local shops. The love affair doesn't seem to be over.

 

[W4ASZ]

How do you say "book 'em" in Italian ?

Out on the plains of western Nebraska, the sheriff came and took away my Italian great-grandfather's short wave radio during the war. Not sure if it was even possible for them to have contacted any relatives in Italy from such a distance, but I guess the threat of them doing it was enough. Thankfully, though, I don't think the family endured any other hardship than that. Western Nebraska was a pretty quiet place.

It was probably only a receiver, but there may only have been a need for one-way communication to coordinate the fifth columnists plotting to seize North Platte.

Wouldn't it have been more productive to deputize him and ask him to keep an ear out for anything unusual ?

Ah, silly me.

 

[AmateisGal]

It was probably only a receiver, but there may only have been a need for one-way communication to coordinate the fifth columnists plotting to seize North Platte.

Wouldn't it have been more productive to deputize him and ask him to keep an ear out for anything unusual ?

Ah, silly me.

Oddly enough, my great-grandfather never became a U.S. citizen. I don't know if this incident or others had anything to do with that. His wife (my great-grandmother Domenica) did - but after failing his citizenship test twice, he never tried again. I am not sure why.

 

[Widebrim]

Just perhaps the "fault" for the American treatment of citizens of a belligerent state lies with the fascist bastards who inspired and allied themselves with Hitler et al.

Any state with an interest in self preservation will monitor and restrict the activities of enemy aliens.

That's right, and you do it by placing a five-mile boundary limit on Joe DiMaggio's father...

Seriously, while it's true that the U.S. had a right to monitor citizens of a country that was beligerent to it, merely being a citizen of said country did not in and of itself merit restrictions. Many of those nationals restricted had no record of involvement in Italian politics, and of those who did, a great number had already renounced Mussolini when he aligned himself with Hitler. Granted, it was a different time and mentality (and hindsight is theoretically 100% accurate), but as I stated in my first post, such restrictions were not imposed on the East Coast (or anywhere else in the U.S.) due to logistics, a fact which likely made very few people nervous. It was done in California because the majority of Italian nationals were concentrated in the San Francisco area, as well as a number in Los Angeles, and were therefore easier to monitor/restrict than the enormous number of them living all over the East Coast. (Sheer numbers also accounted for why less than 1,500 Japanese in Hawai'i were interned. If all Japanese Hawaiians had been relocated, the Hawaiian economy would have pretty much ceased to exist.)

 

[Italian-wiseguy]

You hit the nail right on the head.

Yes they should be blamed, and yes they can change their government by any means necessary. Fact is most Italians supported Mussolini until the war started going bad and didn't seem to have a problem with changeing their gov't when Allied Armies were knocking on the front door with the intent of occupying Italy as a conquered Axis State. Italians threw Mussolini under the bus and then acted like they were being liberated.
I lived in Italy for three years and there is no shortage of portaits of Mussolini hanging in local shops. The love affair doesn't seem to be over.

No, they shouldn't be blamed for the actions of a Government iif they didn't vote for it (especially not the ones living in the USA);

and no, they couldn't change that Government by any mean.

First of all, Mussolini was expressely chosen as a frist Minister by the King himself, instead of stopping the "March of Rome"; then, Mussolini proceded fastly to transform Italy in a dicatotrship, even physically eliminating oppositors (Matteotti e.g.)
and elections during Fascism were a pure farce.
No democracy involved in the process, sorry.

It's true that Fascism had a great popular support (which isn't difficult to achieve, when you can control directly all the school system and the media and make a massive use of propaganda) before the war.

It was the period of "colonial expansion" and of flirting with the USA...

Of course antifascists didn't succeed in throw Mussolini away before, but I'm pretty sure you could have done that all by yourself.

As for "love affair" with Mussolini, if you lived in Italy you should have noticed that this is quiet a variegate country, as mentalities, way of life and politics.
The fact that some shops in Rome sell Mussolini-themed calendars to football hooligans and idiotic teenagers doesn't mean that many other people is still in love with him.
As for the politics, we run the gamut from extreme left to extreme right, as everybody else in the world by the way, and have now a centre-right Government based more or less on the same ideas of the american Republicans.
So far for the "love affair".

Take care.

 

[Aristaeus]

Dan, thanks for posting this, although we should keep in mind that a small number of Italian nationals were interned, while the others in California were solely placed on restriction. I have a book on the subject, "Una Storia Segreta" (A Secret Story or History), and have been aware of this piece of history for some years. It's true that previously it was common practice to "round up" or at least keep a watch on those who were considered "enemy aliens," but as the story points out, these "security measures" were not even attempted on the East Coast, due to the enormous number of Italian nationals there. And, as U.S. Atty. Gen. Francis Biddle said in late 1942, when most of the restrictions (not internments) ended, "We found that 600,000 enemy aliens were, in fact, not enemies." (Which is one reason why about 500,000 of their sons and daughters served in the U.S. Armed Forces during WWII.) At any rate, it is a chapter in U.S. history that Americans should be made aware of, whatever one's opinion of it.

-Lee

"In discussing the war related domestic policies adopted by the United States during World War II, it is important to know that internment is historically different and legally distinct from relocation.
Internment is a well respected and long established component of international law. It permits a country to intern those aliens residing in its territory who are subjects or nationals of any country with which the former is at war.

"Internment is part of U.S. law, (July 6, c. 66, I Stat; R.S. 4067; 50 U.S. Code 21), and is based on the “Enemy Alien Act of 1798”. The constitutionality of internment was twice reaffirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States shortly after the end of WWII in “Ludecke v. Watkins” (335 U.S. 160, 171 nl8 --1948) and “Johnson v. Eisentrager” (339 U.S. 763 --1950).

The total number of people interned during World War II was 31,275.
This number includes 5,620 Japanese who were renunciants -- i.e., native-born U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry who renounced their U.S. citizenship so they could be deported to Japan and help that country’s war effort.
The total number of non-renunciants -- i.e., enemy aliens -- interned was 25,655. Of this number 14,426, or 56 percent, were of European origin -- Germans, Italians, Hungarians, Romanians, Bulgarians, even some Czechs and Poles. Only 16,849 Japanese -- 11,229 enemy aliens and 5,620 who renounced their U.S. citizenship -- were interned.

Relocation was based on Executive Order 9066 issued by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. It directed “the Secretary of War, and the Military commanders whom he may from time to time designate, whenever he or any designated Commander deems such action necessary or desirable, to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion”. The East Coast, West Coast, Gulf Coast, and the Great Lakes were all subject to this policy.
At the time of Pearl Harbor, there were approximately 127,000 persons of Japanese descent living in the United States. Almost 60 percent of the adults among them were Japanese nationals, enemy aliens by law. The remaining 40 percent of the adults were American by birth, but they were also citizens of Japan by choice (dual citizenship). Many had spent the formative years of their youth and received their education in Japan.
Early in 1942, all persons of Japanese descent, approximately 112,000 people, as well as smaller numbers of German and Italian enemy aliens were ordered to evacuate specific West Coast military areas in the interest of national security. Similar evacuations of German and Italian enemy aliens occurred along the entire East Coast."

 

[Aristaeus]

No, they shouldn't be blamed for the actions of a Government iif they didn't vote for it (especially not the ones living in the USA)

Yes, people are in control of their own destiney, Mussolini came to and took power because Italians let him.

and no, they couldn't change that Government by any mean.

They did as I stated in my previoius post or did u miss that. They only did so when it was benefical to them.

First of all, Mussolini was expressely chosen as a frist Minister by the King himself, instead of stopping the "March of Rome"; then, Mussolini proceded fastly to transform Italy in a dicatotrship, even physically eliminating oppositors (Matteotti e.g.)
and elections during Fascism were a pure farce.
No democracy involved in the process, sorry.Of course antifascists didn't succeed in throw Mussolini away before, but I'm pretty sure you could have done that all by yourself.

As I stated in my earlier post it depends on how satisfied you are with your dictator. most Italians did not seem to have a problem with it. Sometimes ppl have to overthrow a gov't to gain its freedom or just sit around and wait for someone else to do it for you.

As for "love affair" with Mussolini, if you lived in Italy you should have noticed that this is quiet a variegate country, as mentalities, way of life and politics.
The fact that some shops in Rome sell Mussolini-themed calendars to football hooligans and idiotic teenagers doesn't mean that many other people is still in love with him.
As for the politics, we run the gamut from extreme left to extreme right, as everybody else in the world by the way, and have now a centre-right Government based more or less on the same ideas of the american Republicans.
So far for the "love affair".

I am talking about small shops in Gaeta, Formia and Naples where portraits of Mussolini were displayed for all to see. These were business owners.
People have to be held accountable for their gov't regardless of how they came to power and regardless of how hard it is to get rid of.

 

[Widebrim]

"In discussing the war related domestic policies adopted by the United States during World War II, it is important to know that internment is historically different and legally distinct from relocation.
Internment is a well respected and long established component of international law. It permits a country to intern those aliens residing in its territory who are subjects or nationals of any country with which the former is at war.

"Internment is part of U.S. law, (July 6, c. 66, I Stat; R.S. 4067; 50 U.S. Code 21), and is based on the “Enemy Alien Act of 1798”. The constitutionality of internment was twice reaffirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States shortly after the end of WWII in “Ludecke v. Watkins” (335 U.S. 160, 171 nl8 --1948) and “Johnson v. Eisentrager” (339 U.S. 763 --1950).

The total number of people interned during World War II was 31,275.
This number includes 5,620 Japanese who were renunciants -- i.e., native-born U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry who renounced their U.S. citizenship so they could be deported to Japan and help that country’s war effort.
The total number of non-renunciants -- i.e., enemy aliens -- interned was 25,655. Of this number 14,426, or 56 percent, were of European origin -- Germans, Italians, Hungarians, Romanians, Bulgarians, even some Czechs and Poles. Only 16,849 Japanese -- 11,229 enemy aliens and 5,620 who renounced their U.S. citizenship -- were interned.

Relocation was based on Executive Order 9066 issued by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. It directed “the Secretary of War, and the Military commanders whom he may from time to time designate, whenever he or any designated Commander deems such action necessary or desirable, to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion”. The East Coast, West Coast, Gulf Coast, and the Great Lakes were all subject to this policy.
At the time of Pearl Harbor, there were approximately 127,000 persons of Japanese descent living in the United States. Almost 60 percent of the adults among them were Japanese nationals, enemy aliens by law. The remaining 40 percent of the adults were American by birth, but they were also citizens of Japan by choice (dual citizenship). Many had spent the formative years of their youth and received their education in Japan.
Early in 1942, all persons of Japanese descent, approximately 112,000 people, as well as smaller numbers of German and Italian enemy aliens were ordered to evacuate specific West Coast military areas in the interest of national security. Similar evacuations of German and Italian enemy aliens occurred along the entire East Coast."

That's actually very informative, Aristaeus, as relates to the technical differences between the terms "internment" and "relocation." Honestly, though, I doubt that such semantics would have been of much comfort to a native-born American of Japanese ancestry living in a "relocation" camp during WWII. Also, included in the figures you provide are over 4,000 Germans and Austrians (some of them Jews) living in Latin America, who (at the insistence of the FBI) were forceably brought to the U.S. and detained/interned. In the words of Gen. George Marshall, they were "to be used for exchange with interned American civilian nationals" in Germany.

As regards numbers, it's also important to note that of the 120,000 ethnic Japanese relocated, 62% were Nisei (American-born, second-generation) or Sansei (third-generation). There is no proof that all of the Nisei were dual citizens "by choice." The relocation of Japanese ethnics simply reflects the attitude of then California Attorney General Earl Warren: "When we are dealing with the Caucasian race [in this case, Italians and Germans] we have methods that will test the loyalty of them. But when we deal with the Japanese, we are on an entirely different field." And regarding Executive Order 9066, it's interesting that in 1982 the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians found that the incarceration of Japanese ethnics was based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership." This, of course, was after President Ford had rescinded EO 9066 in 1976.

Going back to the Italians, what is interesting about the whole matter, as I earlier alluded to, is that less than a year after the restrictions against Italian nationals went into place, they ended. The desire to not further alienate "ethnic" voters against the Democrats was likely a major factor, yet the words of Gen. Biddle should again be recalled: "We found that 600,000 enemy aliens were, in fact, not enemies." (Although Pres. Roosevelt's crack that Italy was "a nation of opera singers" is also food for thought...)

-Lee

 

[Widebrim]

It's true that Fascism had a great popular support (which isn't difficult to achieve, when you can control directly all the school system and the media and make a massive use of propaganda) before the war.

It was the period of "colonial expansion" and of flirting with the USA...

And what is likely not known by many, is how Mussolini was greatly admired in the U.S. during the '20s and early '30s, even by moderate liberals. Columbia Pictures released a documentary in 1933 titled, "Mussolini Speaks," which drew record crowds at the RKO Palace in NYC. What is also interesting is that the American Legion lauded Mussolini, while the Ku Klux Klan vilified him, since most of his U.S. supporters were "foreigners."

 

[Italian-wiseguy]

Yes, people are in control of their own destiney, Mussolini came to and took power because Italians let him.

This is way simplistic and wishful thinking.
I already stated how things had gone, but if you still want to conveniently ignore them for the sake of "blame a whole people makes me feel so good", I'm not going to repeat them infinitely.
That's all I can do for you.

You seem to consider a people as a single entity with a single wish and point of view.
What is even worst, you patently ignore causes, effects, origins and developments... in one word History.

Finally, I don't care if you for one think that all the persons of a nation, for some reason that eludes me, share the same ideas, and I'm not responsable of how many shopkeepers in Gaeta have fascist ideas (I guess you interrogated them all).

I honestly think that your way of generalizing, not to say about your cartoonish representation of WWII, is chauvinistic and bordering with racism.

My family suffered enough during fascism to let everyone come here and say that "we" could have overthrown Mussolini, "if only we tried".
Sorry, my family hadn't superpowers at the time, we are equipping now so that we can overthrow Ahmadinejad or Kim Jong Il, at your permission.

Ciao.

 

[Spitfire]

Bravo

Well said Italian-wiseguy!
:eusa_clap :eusa_clap