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State apologizes for mistreatment of Italian residents during WWII
Legislature passes resolution expressing 'deepest regret' for the
wartime internment, curfews, confiscations and other indignities that
thousands of Italian and Italian American families faced.
A photograph shows Mike Maiorana's father's fishing boat, front left,
sitting in Monterey Harbor in 1950. It was one of many boats the U.S.
seized from Italian and Italian American residents to support the war
effort in the 1940s. (Jay L. Clendenin, Los Angeles Times / August 23,
2010)
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By Steve Chawkins, Los Angeles Times
August 23, 2010
la-me-italians-20100823
Reporting from Monterey -
When Mike Maiorana was a boy during World War II
<
http://www.latimes.com/topic/unrest-conflicts-war/wars-interventions/wo
rld-war-ii-%281939-1945%29-EVHST00000110.topic> , his family was like a
lot of others in his Monterey neighborhood.
In 1942, his mother was declared an "enemy alien," along with 600,000
other Italians and half a million Germans and Japanese who weren't U.S.
citizens. More than once, men in suits searched the Maiorana house for
guns, flashlights, cameras, shortwave radios - anything that could be
used to signal the enemy.
Like 10,000 others up and down the California coast, the family was
suddenly forced to uproot. At their new place in Salinas, they had to be
home by 8 p.m. or face arrest. And when the government seized fishing
boats for the war effort, Maiorana's dad, a naturalized U.S. citizen,
saw his livelihood go down the drain.
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"He was on the skids for the rest of his life," said Maiorana, 75, who
owns a boatyard and marina on the harbor where his father's boat - as
well as those of his uncles and several dozen other Italian fishermen -
were confiscated.
Families like the Maioranas last week received a formal acknowledgement
from California. A measure that swiftly made its way through the
Legislature expresses the state's "deepest regrets" over the
mistreatment of Italians and Italian Americans during World War II. Not
nearly as severe or long-lasting as the internment of Japanese
Americans, the wartime restrictions are still little-known throughout
California, where they were the most heavily enforced.
The resolution was the brainchild of a 79-year-old San Jose man who
entered a legislator's annual "There Oughta Be a Law" contest.
"The treatment Italians received in California was horrible," said Chet
Campanella, who recalled his father hiding a radio in a backyard chicken
coop. "There wasn't one tiny bit of evidence that any Italian was
responsible for spying, sabotage, or doing anything else to hinder the
war effort."
Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) sponsored a bill based on Campanella's
idea.
"I was wholly unaware of the circumstances he described," Simitian said.
"Somehow this story had passed me by."
Simitian, an attorney and former Palo Alto mayor, said he saw
"contemporary importance" in the effort: "We're at war on the other side
of the world, and I think it's important to remember that there are
millions of Americans who are ethnic Arabs or Muslim by faith, and that
they're good Americans."
No comparable measure has been passed by the state or federal government
on behalf of more than 11,000 interned Germans, including some Jewish
refugees fleeing Hitler.
Even before war broke out, the FBI
<
http://www.latimes.com/topic/crime-law-justice/crimes/fbi-ORGOV000008.t
opic> had compiled lists of immigrants who were considered dangerous.
Among the Italians, there were journalists, language teachers and men
active in an Italian veterans group. After Pearl Harbor, about 250 were
sent to camps in Montana and elsewhere.
They were seen - without basis, according to many historians - as ardent
supporters of Mussolini. But the dictator's popularity in the Italian
community had waned, despite his sponsorship of community centers,
Italian language classes and trips back to the homeland for U.S.
immigrants.
Gloria Ricci Lothrop, a professor emeritus of history at Cal State
Northridge
<
http://www.latimes.com/topic/education/colleges-universities/california
-state-university-northridge-OREDU000070.topic> , said her future
stepfather, the editor of the Italian-language La Parola newspaper in
Los Angeles, was hustled off to Fort Missoula, Mont., in a train with
darkened windows. Giovanni Falasca stayed there until war's end. He
later started a restaurant on Figueroa Street, where he was beaten to
death during a robbery.
Lower on the watch list, Lothrop's mother, Maria Ricci, was a poet and
La Parola columnist. The FBI fruitlessly scoured translations of her
work for subversive content, Lothrop said. An agent in a fedora and
double-breasted suit showed up repeatedly but would end up talking to
her about gardening.
In New York, the FBI incarcerated Metropolitan Opera star Ezio Pinza and
released him, without charge, three months later. In San Francisco, Joe
DiMaggio
<
http://www.latimes.com/topic/sports/joe-dimaggio-PESPT001802.topic> 's
father Giuseppe couldn't visit the family restaurant on Fisherman's
Wharf: As an enemy alien, he could not travel more than five miles
without permission.
Enforcement was chaotic. On the East Coast, with its massive Italian
population, there was no forced relocation. In California, the mandate
hit Northern California harder than the Los Angeles area.
In the Bay Area, Pittsburg was home to Camp Stoneman, a jumping-off
point for Pacific-bound troops. About 2,000 Italians were ousted from
the community, with the burden falling most on elderly people who didn't
speak much English and hadn't become citizens.
Lucy Gallaro Dube of Orange County recalls her widowed grandmother
cramming into a house with half a dozen other displaced women.
"She was just a few months from getting her citizenship," Dube said. "I
don't know what they thought these old ladies were going to do."
Sad ironies abounded. In Monterey, Rosina Trovato was told that her son
and nephew had died at Pearl Harbor. The next day, she was ordered to
leave her home.
Then there was the confiscation of fishing boats from California's
mostly Italian fleet. Paying their owners a nominal fee, the government
used them to haul targets and refuel PT boats. But the cost of postwar
repairs and a vanishing sardine fishery spelled disaster for many.
Angelo Maiorana, Mike's father, owned the 95-foot Dux, which was
returned to him in bad shape after four years in the Philippines.
"They gave him a $20,000 check, but it cost him $46,000 to get the boat
back into condition," his son said. "He was on his back, flat broke."
In 2000, Congress passed a bill formally acknowledging "injustices"
during World War II.
One of its most eloquent advocates was Lawrence DiStasi, a writer and
historian who put together "Una Storia Segreta," a travelling exhibit on
the wartime restrictions.
"When we started, I had trouble getting people to talk about it," he
said. "There was still a lot of shame, stress and pain."
Most of the measures ended within a year. The government realized they
were logistically impossible - especially with hundreds of thousands of
Italian Americans fighting for the U.S. overseas.
On Columbus Day
<
http://www.latimes.com/topic/arts-culture/holidays/columbus-day-EVFES00
00084.topic> in 1942, U.S. Atty. Gen. Francis Biddle announced the good
news in a speech laden with references to Dante, Galileo
<
http://www.latimes.com/topic/arts-culture/galileo-galilei-PEHST000737.t
opic> and Leonardo da Vinci
<
http://www.latimes.com/topic/arts-culture/leonardo-da-vinci-PEHST002169
.topic> .
"We found," he said, "that 600,000 enemy aliens were, in fact, not
enemies."
steve.chawkins@???
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