The Italian-American Interment During World War II - Research Paper Example

?The Italian-American Interment During World War II The battles of World War II that centered around the German war created a situation of distrust and alienation for most citizens across the world. Without the ability of knowing whom to trust and how to deal with the foreigners in their land that they knew very little to nothing about, the United States set about protecting themselves from the perceived threats that the early version of “terrorist threats” was believed to pose. They took to interring the Japanese and Italians in war-time internment camps for this very purpose. However, Italians were treated differently, with only non-citizen Italians placed in the camps. On the part of the United States, it was President Franklin D. Roosevelt who at first admired the ways of the Italians via his affinity with the soon to be dictator Benito Mussolini, and then decided that the very person he admired was now a threat because of Mussolini's solid partnership with Adolf Hitler under the “Pact of Steel.” It was this paranoia on the part of Roosevelt that led to acts of Congress in the years of 1935-1939 that allowed for the illegal internment of Italians and eventually, the Germans and Japanese. 1 Examples of this legislative work include the Alien Registration Act of 1940 and the Dangerous Cargo Act. All of the actions which the American government took against the enemy aliens on their land led to the creation of Nazi-like internment camps where Italians were held indefinitely without any charges being filed and their movement limited within the area of their incarceration. Thus, they were not allowed to hold jobs or own any businesses in their community. These inhumanities were but the tip of the iceberg when it came to the atrocities of war against the Italians residing in America without any legal status, though. If one were of Italian descent and living in the United States at that time without the benefit of citizenship, he and his family would most likely end up in an internment camp, regardless of the fact that the Italian Americans were one of the largest immigrant groups in the country at the time. The Italian immigrants were just like any other immigrant family in the United States. They struggled to retain their heritage while doing their best to become a part of the new culture that they chose to involve themselves with. It was these types of people who became the targets as alien threats in America. Mainly because of their adjustment issues, the old time Italians who could not adjust to the American way of life found themselves agreeing with Mussolini in terms of Fascist ideology, which they came to view in terms of a renewed spirit of their homeland that they needed to honor. 2 These sentiments also caused a great divide between the immigrant Italians and their first generation born Italian-American offspring who now identified more with the land of their birth in terms of heritage rather than the homeland of their parents. The arrests of the Italians living in America began on December 7, 1941. People arrested were part of the so-called Custodial List of the FBI that Pres. Roosevelt had the agency compile in the event that the United States needed to get involved in the ongoing World War. The list was meant to protect the country from being infiltrated by enemy forces and was set into action through the power of Title 50 of the U.S. Code, based on the 1798 Alien and Sedition Act which allowed for the arrest of “alien threats” during times of emergency. 3 Such was the perceived threat from the Italian immigrants during this time that the government began a rigorous campaign to quash the Italian heritage of first generation Italian Americans by declaring Italian an enemy language. The slogan for their campaign was “Don't Speak the Enemy's Language! Speak American!” These posters lined the Italian-American communities during the war time era and saw a rapid decline in the use of Italian in the country since business owners decided not to speak the language in their place of business and the parents, who now had first generation Italian-American children, decided to not teach their children the language of their homeland. It is said that this campaign caused a great deal of damage to the Italian-American culture since the Italian language was now considered to be inimical to the American way of life. 4 The pressure from the United States government continued to increase upon the Italians living in America. It no longer mattered that they were upstanding citizens of the state. Being married to an American was no longer something that protected them from false arrests as their homes were invaded and the Italian partner found him or herself forcibly taken and placed in an internment camp simply because they were not documented or first generation Italian-Americans. This was truly one of the darkest moments in American history as racial profiling became the treatment of choice by the Americans of the Italians and there was nothing in the law or the Constitution that could prevent the mistreatment of the immigrants who came to America in the hopes of finding a better life for themselves and their family members. With over 500 Italians in the camps at this point, things were only about to get worse for them. Italians were forced to relocate their homes because they were in a way being forced out of the United States since they were perceived and openly branded as “alien threats.” While some Italians found themselves as residents of internment camps spread across the nation, there were those who were not taken to camps, but whose movements were restricted within their area of residence. Numbering around 600,000, these Italians who were legal residents of the United States and citizens of their adopted country found themselves being restricted in movement. They were not allowed to leave their state or travel at night. These restrictions caused a great deal of financial difficulty for these Italian-American families and saw some of them committing suicide because of despair. Those who chose to continue living in their state were forced to register themselves constantly at the local post offices. Photo identification booklets were a part of their daily life, and they were forced to hand over items the government fell under the classification of contraband such as short wave radios, cameras, and flashlights. These were the rules that the Italians had to live by if they did not want to become part of the 1,600 Italians arrested, 250 of whom were Italian citizens held in internment camps. Their freedom to move around was restricted by a night time curfew, their children were not allowed to attend Italian language schools (which the government subsequently shut down), and large groups of Italian-American gatherings were not permitted without ample supervision of the authorities. 5 The interment of the Italians in America during World War II is a part of the war that is not as widely known as the internment of the Japanese within the United States. It has been relatively ignored for more than 50 years and is only slowly coming to the knowledge of a new generation of Americans and Italian-Americans. World War II created a sense of distrust and the use of the “Big Brother” syndrome on a scale that had not been seen before the events of September 11, 2000 when terrorists successfully airplane bombed the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. It is difficult to understand how a country that has the Statue of Liberty standing tall and welcoming its immigrants to Ellis Island could treat those who came to them with the hopes of being able to positively contribute to the development of modern America, as aliens living in their country in the manner that they did during World War II. There was no sense in treating these people so badly and miserably when they did nothing to show that they were enemies. Instead, the government fed the fire of distrust by rounding up these people and separating them from the rest of the world without just cause. The people that the American government chose to unlawfully incarcerate were never actually proven to be enemies of the state. They were nothing more than ordinary immigrants trying to start a new life in the land of hope. Yet they were treated only slightly better than the Jews were being treated in their German counterpart camps. Therefore, it is only right that the American government owns up to this war time atrocity and does what it can to repair the damage caused, no matter how late. Works Cited Myers, John. “Italian Americans and World War II: Enemy Aliens.” All Categories. Yahoo! Voices. 26 Aug. 2008. Web. 16 Mar. 2013. “The Story of Italian American Interment during World War II”. italianhistorical.org. n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2013. San Filippo, Michael. “When Speaking Italian Was a Crime.” Italian Language. about.com. n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2013. Santos, Paula Branca. “”Injustice Ignored: The Internment of Italian-Americans during World War II.” Pace International Law Review 13 (2001): 164. digitalcommons.pace.edu. Web. 17 Mar. 2013. Read More