During World War II, the U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security [View all]

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The executive order that forced Japanese-Americans from their homes also put immigrants from Italy under the watchful eye of the government

____ Rumors began right after the Pearl Harbor attack. The government was going to pass a law taking away the property of all Italians who didn’t have citizenship papers; Italians living near defense factories would be forced to move; Italian homes would be searched and cameras, shortwave radios and guns would be confiscated. In fact, government officials considered all three of those options.

(Young postgraduate sociology student at the University of Chicago) Paul Campisi’s surveys found a contrast between how the older, Italian-born generation and second-generation Italian-Americans viewed the threat. The older generation felt a deep inner conflict. “It was hard for the Italians to believe that their homeland was actually at war with America. It was incredible, unbelievable,” he wrote. But even though all Italian-Americans ages 14 and older had to register as aliens following the 1940 Alien Registration Act, a process that filled them with anxiety, nobody believed it would go any further.

“Italians weren’t expecting the shock which awaited them on December 8,” Campisi wrote. “It was a dual reaction. First, anger, amazement, and incredible shock at the news of Pearl Harbor, and then sorrow and pain at the realization that Italy definitely would now be an enemy nation.” Now Italian-Americans faced even greater suspicion from their co-workers and friends...

The same chill settled in Connecticut. One morning in spring 1942, federal officers knocked on the door of a New Haven home. The man who opened the door, Pasquale DeCicco, was a pillar of his community and had been a U.S. citizen for more than 30 years. He was taken to a federal detention center in Boston, where he was fingerprinted, photographed and held for three months. Then he was sent to another detention facility on Ellis Island.

Still with no hearing scheduled, he was moved again to an immigration facility at Fort Meade, Maryland. On July 31, he was formally declared an enemy alien of the United States. He remained at Fort Meade until December 1943, months after Italy’s surrender. He was never shown any evidence against him, nor charged with any crime.

EO 9066 not only allowed the government to arrest and imprison “enemy aliens” without charges or trial—it meant their homes and businesses could be summarily seized. On the West Coast, California’s attorney general Earl Warren (later the Chief Justice of the United States) was relentless in registering enemy aliens for detention...

read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/italian-americans-were-considered-enemy-aliens-world-war-ii-180962021/?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=socialmedia