L'Italo-Americano

www.italoamericano.org 10 THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 2017 L'Italo-Americano L awrence DiStasi, a resident of Bolinas California, is the author of several books on the Italian immigrant and post- immigrant experience in America. Among his works are The Big Book on Italian American Culture, Mal Occhio: The Underside of Vision, and Una Storia Segreta: The Secret History of Italian American Evacuation and Internment During World War II. The latter, which DiStasi edited, is a collec- tion of essays which covers the forced evacuation from strategic locations on the California coast and the internment of Italian immigrants after Mussolini joined the Axis. It also reveals that more than six hundred thousand Italian immigrants became officially des- ignated "Enemy Aliens" of the United States and were required to carry with them twenty-four hours a day a pink booklet con- taining their official registration number and the rules by which they had to conduct themselves, which included a night curfew and a prohibition of owning guns, radios, and other instruments that the government at the time con- sidered potentially threatening to the security of the U.S. during wartime. The fear was, as irra- tional as it may seem to us today, that somehow Italian immigrants might join a conspira- cy to aid in the invasion of the U.S. DiStasi's current work, Branded, is a comprehensive overview of Una Storia that fills in gaps that the earlier collection of essays missed. It begins with an informative preface in which DiStasi explains the prelude to War, Mussolini's joining the Axis, and the Italian immigrant and Italian American reactions to Mussolini's aggression in places such as Ethiopia in 1935. He explains at one point, a subject close to L'Italo-Americano, that "most Italian editors and broad- casters believed that Italian Americans could be for Italy under Mussolini and for America at the same time." But the American government was suspi- cious and had reason to be. By the mid-1930s Mussolini's propagan- da machine had diligently located all Italian publications in America and had begun to flood Italian publications in Canada and the U.S. with fascist propaganda. In chapter V, DiStasi includes a dis- cussion of the debated over fas- cist support in San Francisco newspapers at the time which drew the attention of the govern- ment and resulted in government- held hearing. Though unknown to only a few of us associated with the paper, this period is an unfortu- nate chapter in the history of L'Italo-Americano. L'Italo- Americano was among those papers that received pro-fascist propaganda. When Mussolini joined the Axis with Germany and Japan, Italy suddenly became an enemy of the U.S. As a result, U.S. government officials' initial suspicion of Italian publications suddenly had a basis in reality. Little known to the read- ers of L'Italo-Americano is that the newspaper's editions from 1941 to 1945 are missing. It appears that out of apprehension over the government's suspicion and its official hearings in San Francisco, the editor of L'Italo- Americano it seems destroyed those war-time copies of the paper that may well have had compromising fascist propagan- da. No one knows for sure. But when I first met with the then edi- tor, Mario Trecco, I saw the back editions of L'Italo-Americano in the original Spring Street office in 1976, when I began my book col- umn for the paper. Only later did I discover the missing editions of the paper. Beyond his preface, in chapter II, War and Restrictions, DiStasi covers the restrictions placed on Italian immigrants, from firearms to cameras. Just what my Sicilian- speaking grandfather, whose pink booklet I still have, could do with a twelve-gauge shotgun or a radio is unclear. In addition, Italians were also forced to move from what were considered strategic locations along the coast and other inland areas deemed strate- gic locations by the govern- ment. DiStasi cites oral history, newspaper accounts, and official records of Italians' relocation, their detentions, interrogations, and in general the FBI's surveil- lance of Italians. For example, Italian immigrant Ferdinando Ghibaudo in October of 1942 applied for a permit, as he was required to do by the FBI, to move from Richmond to Santa Rosa to take a new job. When the FBI went to check on him and found him outside at midnight in violation of the 8PM curfew for immigrant Italians, the officers arrested him. Upon his process- ing, the FBI then found that he was in the U.S. illegally. Ghibaudo fought a lengthy legal battle to remain in the U.S., much like Hispanic immigrants today, which Ghibaudo eventually won. In chapter III, the Internment, DiStasi covers the internment of Italians and J. Edgar Hoover's efforts to arrest suspicious aliens. Among the 1, 393 Germans, 2, 192 Japanese, Hoover arrested 264 Italians. By the war's end Hoover would arrest over 3, 300 Italians, though the number of those officially interned would number in the hundreds. Thousands more Germans and Japanese were arrested as Hoover sought to increase his numbers for political reasons. By the war's end approximately 110, 000 Japanese would be transferred to internment camps. As Vincent Cannato points out in American Passage, the government did not intern Italians because they were too valuable to California agricul- ture and the U.S. needed the food supply for the troops. Furthermore, the state department did not want to cause unnecessary dissent among the sizeable Italian population in California. As Cannato also points out, little known to students of this period, there were 160, 000 Japanese liv- ing in Hawaii at the time. Though congress made an effort to intern them as well, they were not interned for the same reason Italian immigrants were spared: the government considered them too important to the business and agricultural community on the islands as probably the most important Pacific outpost in the war, Hawaii was indispensable, and the U.S. could not afford a collapse in the Hawaiian econo- my or the alienation of the large Japanese community on the islands. In Evacuation and Curfew, DiStasi covers the evac- uation of Italians from strategic locations in California and the curtailment of their civil rights during the war. He provides both documentary evidence, including maps, and Italian oral history accounts from local residents. In chapter V, Individual Exclusion, DiStasi discusses the government hearing while citing documents with quotations from the hearings and governmental records pertaining to the exclu- sion of Japanese and Italian enemy aliens from east and west coast locations. In perhaps the most enlightening chapter, The Plight of the Fishermen, DiStasi documents the government's seizure of all Italian and Japanese fishing boats in the U.S., includ- ing those along the California coast. The seizure included not just Italian immigrants' boats, but the seizure of Italian American boats as well. Not only were fish- ermen's livelihoods taken from them, the policy devastated the fishing industry in America and was counterproductive to the war effort. When Mussolini fell, the government felt compelled to return their boats because of the troops' need for protein. However, the government stipu- lated that each boat had to have at least one American citizen on it. When the fishermen did get their boats back, they found that in many cases the Navy had used them, and they were in an advanced state of disrepair. The fishermen had to repair them at their own expense. DiStasi's coverage of this peri- od in Italian immigrant and Italian American history is well documented and an important contribution not only to Italians in America but to the immigrant experience in general in the U.S. It seems especially impor- tant today given the current presi- dent's irrational attempt to build a wall on the U.S. southern border with Mexico and the irrational demonization of immigrants in general, especially Muslims. What DiStasi's Branded tells us is that we must put all the current chaos generated by the White House into an historical perspec- tive. But it seems that whenever scholars, lawyers, and broadcast and print journalists attempt to write or talk about the history of immigrant exclusion, they forget the most important "wall" that the federal government erected to stop immigrants from entering the U.S.: the Emergency Immigration Act of 1921 and its final revised form, the Immigration Act of 1924, otherwise known as the Johnson-Reed Act. The 1921 and 1924 acts, based on the racist the- ory of eugenics, were aimed at stopping three major immigrant groups from entering the U.S.: Asians, Eastern Europeans, and Southern Europeans. Specifically, the acts were aimed at stopping Chinese, Japanese, Jews, and Southern Italians from entering the U.S. In the many books writ- ten about Southern Italians before World War II, it should be added that Catholicism was considered to be like Islam today: a suspect religion that would forever keep its faithful bound to its orthodoxy and from assimilating fully into American society. Out of all four groups, Italians, with over 200, 000 immigrants passing through Ellis Island (and other ports of entry) per year, were by far the largest immigrant group entering the U.S., with 85% of Italians coming from the South. The 1921 act limited Italians by 97.8% of their annual total. The 1924 final draft of the act increased the percentage to 98.7%. The Act did not place any quotas on Mexicans, Canadians, and South Americans. It is fair to say that, among all the European immigrant groups, Italians were the main target and had the high- est "wall" erected against their entry. In 1943, as Vincent Cannato points out, because of the war in the Pacific against the Japanese, war-time politics required that the U.S. needed an ally in the Pacific and the Chinese exclusion was lifted and the Chinese were given open entry to the U.S. Otherwise, the act stayed in place until its revision by the 1965 Civil Rights Act. The longevity of the Italian exclusion from the U.S., more than forty years, explains why U.S. Little Italys in the post-war period dis- appeared: there were not enough Italian immigrants entering to replenish those Italian settle- ments. If the acts are discussed at all in the media, commentators describe only certain terms of the act, while leaving out the "wall" erected against Italians, specifi- cally Southern Italians. Italians must be aware of their history and how knowledge of their special history—not false facts—echoes policies coming out of the White House today. It is significant that the term for illegal immigrants before World War II still current in our lexicon: WOP, a racist acronym that is identified only with Italians. DiStasi has added to that the moniker "enemy aliens." Threatened by irrational presi- dential executive orders, immi- grants today are targeted by a revival of the same anti-immi- grant xenophobia that Italian Catholic immigrants once faced in the U.S. DiStasi's book is a timely example of what our cur- rent governmental policies will look like to future generations. Book Review: Branded: How Italian Immigrants Became "Enemies" During World War II. By Lawrence W. DiStasi. Bolinas: Sanniti Publications, 2016 KENNETH SCAMBRAY Author Lawrence Di Stasi Book Review LIFE PEOPLE MOVIES MUSIC BOOKS

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