L'Italo-Americano

www.italoamericano.org 20 L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2017 LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE D ear Readers, February, the month we celebrate Passion and Presidents, I prefer writing about Amore and Heart shaped boxes filled with exquisite Italian Chocolates, however, a recent Executive Order, designed to keep Americans safe, reminded me about an order with an Italian connection, signed on February 24, 1942. *** The Executive Order signed on February 24, 1942 branded over 600,000 Italo-Americans Nationwide, including my mamma "enemy aliens", subject to Registration, property confiscation, relocation, curfews and often on flimsy evidence incarceration. On the West Coast, a General De Witt was in charge of implementing the Executive Order and he did so with relish. The Executive Order, signed in February 1942, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and enforced by General DeWitt, included no travel beyond a five- mile radius from home and curfews, between 8:00PM and 6:00AM which created serious emplacement problems for "enemy aliens". *** In California, some 52,000 Italian enemy aliens had to abide by curfews literal house arrest which forced them to be in their houses by 8PM and remain there until 6 in the morning. Many, reported for being out after 8, were arrested for curfew violations, and were then detained in INS detention centers. Many lost jobs. Aristide Bertolini in Santa Rosa was arrested for delivering tomatoes to a customer after curfew. *** Fishermen, if they were enemy aliens, were prohibited from going near the docks, and could not fish; many took other jobs on shore. Those who were American citizens could get passes to the docks, but many Italian boat owners had their boats requisitioned by the Navy (75 boats from Monterey alone; dozens more from San Francisco, Boston, Gloucester, etc.) for use as mine sweepers and patrol boats. If these boat owners wanted to fish, they had to charter boats, at a loss. When their requisitioned boats were returned, many were damaged and required thousands of dollars of repairs. The impact of these restrictions was widespread and apparently unanticipated by the government. In places like Monterey, Santa Cruz, Pittsburg and San Francisco - where the Italians, many of them long term residents without final citizenship papers, constituted a majority of the fishermen, scavengers, restaurant workers and janitors - the restrictions created serious employment and food-supply problems. Nationwide, several thousand "potentially dangerous" enemy aliens were arrested in an initial FBI roundup starting on December 8, 1941 and continuing for many months. Of those, about 300-400 were sent to internment camps like the one in McAlester, Oklahoma, run by the U.S. Army. Those still interned after May 1943 were all sent to the INS-run camp at Missoula Montana. *** In February 1942 all enemy aliens had to register at their post- office and carry the pink booklets with photo and fingerprints that were issued. *** In California, some 10,000 Italian enemy aliens - along with their American born children under 14 - had to leave their homes in coastal areas (where they night signal the enemy) which had been declared "prohibited zones" by the Department of Justice. In places like Pittsburg, Monterey and Alameda, thousands had to leave and find housing elsewhere. The government began plans to establish similar zones along the East Coast but, in May 1942, was dissuaded by the huge numbers that would have to move. *** Back in 1994, when the "una storia segreta" Exhibit opened at the Museo Italo- Americano in San Francisco, Signora Rose Viscuso, of Pittsburg, California recalled that in 1942, when she was twelve years old, she and her mother had to relocate because their home was too close to a "visual industry", Columbia Steel. It did not matter that both her father and two brothers were employed in those same "vital industries". Rosa said that her mother received a letter from the U.S. Government stating that because she had not become a U.S. citizen, she would have to move to a specified area in the county, because our house was too close to the Columbia Steel Co. and other vital industries. Because we were at war with Germany and Italy, it didn't matter that my father, a U.S. citizen, was employed at Kaiser Shipyards in Richmond, Calif., building the Liberty ships for the Defense Dept., and my two brothers worked at Columbia Steel. Since I was a minor, I had to accompany my mother. I was attending jr. high school, and I felt bad about leaving all of my childhood friends. Continuing to comply, in March1942, my mother and I went to live in a rented house on West St. and Clayton Road in the outskirts of Concord, about nineteen miles from our home in Pittsburg, Mt. Diablo was nearby. Across the street was a small crop duster airport and hanger, next to acres of strawberry fields that had been abandoned by a Japanese family sent to "relocation" camps. I can remember sitting in the strawberry patch and eating strawberries until I became ill. *** One day, about eight months later, my mother put me on a Greyhound bus and sent me to Pittsburg to find any news on when we could return home. When I arrived, the news was good, so they sent me back to Concord to alert everyone. I can remember the joy and the tears when I told my mother and aunt. Momma sent me on to alert the others in a one-mile radius. I went knocking on doors and shouting, "You can go home now!". I felt like Paul Revere, Italian style... *** The Executive order signed on February 24, 1942, which General De Witt reluctantly lifted, removed all Military restrictions on Non-Citizen Italians and took place on Columbus Day, October 12, 1942. *** Although the bans were removed (from the 1942 Executive order) and the U.S. Attorney General, Francis Biddle in a speech said that "Italian Americans had proven their loyalty" this did not affect Italians who had been arrested, interned or detained by the FBI as early as December 8, 1941, the night after the December 7th, Pearl Harbor attack. Many of them remained in internment or exile until well after Italy surrendered and joined the Allies in the Fall of 1943. *** Many U.S. Citizens of Italian extraction did not return to the coastal cities after the restrictions were lifted but remained inland, in Reno and Las Vegas rather than risk imprisonment on flimsy charges, such as suspicion of "potential danger"/ *** One person whose internment saddened the entire Italo- American community in Northern California, including my parents, was Italian Radio personality Nereo Francesconi. Many listeners, had met Nereo at the picnics he organized each summer. It was all very "segreto". One evening, instead of Nereo Francesconi on the air his wife Lia was reading the News and continued during his internment but "Dov'era Nereo?" Rumors yes, but no explanation was given. Italian Radio personality Nereo Francesconi had been interned and sent to Montana on the flimsiest of evidence. In his home, they found a flashlight, construed to be a signaling device, and a radio. Francesconi was a kind man. Before war was declared, the U.S. government at one time confiscated about 25 Italian ships in U.S. ports, stranding about 2,000 Italian merchant seamen. Many of the stranded Italian sailors had no money, no shoes or shirts, and they appealed to San Francisco's Italian community for help. Francesconi was able to round up food and clothes for the sailors, but his kindness was later used against him by Federal authorities. Francesconi was soon reunited with many of the merchant seamen he had aided; more than 1,300 Italians, including 250 italian civilians (some had been waiters and staff at the 1939-40 New York World's Fair italian Pavillion) were interned in Missoula, Montana. He was interned at various other locations for two years before he obtained his unconditional release. Francesconi and a group of 200 Italians eventually were sent from Montana to military camps in Texas and Oklahoma, then back to Montana. The chilly Montana winters and lack of communications were hard to tolerate, but the Italians kept themselves occupied. They cooked their own food, built model ships, painted and grew fruits and vegetables. They formed their own orchestra, soccer team and choir and often gave public performances to the delight of the local citizenry in Missoula, Montana. ***

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