Persecution of Italian Americans ????

http://www.anu.org/archives_persecutionofitalians.html

Most American children and adults know the story of the Holocaust, as presented to them by the System through the media and government schools, far better than they know the history of their own country. And most Americans know by now how the "progressive, open-minded liberals" who controlled the Franklin Roosevelt administration interned Japanese Americans in concentration camps during World War II. The government has apologized and financially compensated the survivors of the camps. But how many Americans know that Italian Americans --- especially those in California --- were treated virtually identically to the Japanese during World War II?

The federal government branded more than 600,000 Italian immigrants as "enemy aliens" during the Great Liberal Holy War of 1939-45. They were forbidden to leave their homes after dark. Others were forced to leave families and jobs in California's so-called "military zones." Many others, for example the parents of Joe DiMaggio, then one of America's top baseball heroes, were forbidden to travel more than five miles without a permit. Other Italian Americans were couped in Quonset huts in Pacifica, while others were interned in concentration camps throughout the country, treated like POWs by the government of the country which they had yearned so much to come and contribute to.

Many of the details of this outrage were presented at an exhibit called "Una Storia Segrets," which was held at a San Francisco museum in late March.

According to an article by the McClatchy News Service, 2,303 Californians of Italian, German and Japanese descent were arrested by the FBI within days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Many of California's 100,000 Italian immigrants had personal items such as radio, firearms, cameras and flashlights seized. Thousands of fishermen in Monterey and Pittsburg (Calif.) were forced to give up their boats. In Pittsburg, which had a military installation, some 1,400 Italian Americans were forced to leave the city, branded "security risks." After three months, the women and children were allowed to return, but 250 men were forced to spend the next two years in a concentration camp in Montana.

Among those persecuted were Guido Trento, a star of the silent movie era, who was shipped to a camp, and the mayor of San Francisco, Angelo Rossi, who had to defend himself at a legislative hearing on unAmerican activities. The restrictions on Italians were not lifted by the federal government until late 1943.
Over 500,000 Italian Americans served in the U.S. armed forces during World War II. The federal government has never formally apologized for its actions against Italians, leaving it as one of the many wrongs committed by the Allies against their own domestic populations as well as their avowed external enemies, in a war that the U.S. establishment still cartoonishly portrays as one of pure good against pure evil.