December 7 is a date that will live in infamy, not just because of the tragic attack on Pearl Harbor. That night, the FBI began arresting "potentially dangerous" Japanese, German, and Italian residents before the United States had even officially entered World War II.
That week, before Mussolini's December 11 war declaration, Italian Americans like Frank Fragale (Milwaukee), Mario Valdastri (Honolulu), Filippo Molinari (Los Angeles), Filippo Fordelone (San Jose, California), Louis Berizzi (New York City), and 69 other Italian-born residents were taken from their homes, some in pajamas, and sent to internment camps for months or years.
Families were left without income, assets frozen, and lives upended under Title 50 of the U.S. Code, based on the 1798 Alien & Sedition Acts. It was the last time a U.S. president invoked the Enemy Aliens Act.
The FBI had, since 1939, been compiling lists of suspicious and allegedly subversive persons whom they decided required surveillance and (in the event of war) arrest for internment. Among the hundreds targeted and later interned were journalists (and even media salesmen), Italian Consulate employees, and veterans of the Great War (when Italy and America were allies).
Internees were sent to camps across the nation, where hundreds spent years imprisoned. They were allowed to write to their families, but they were limited to two letters and/or four postcards per week on special forms that held no more than 24 lines, and every piece of mail was censored. Because most men were held far from home, families rarely had the chance to visit. When visits were permitted, they typically lasted about 30 minutes, and participants were allowed to speak only in English.
This largely overlooked history and the internees' personal stories inspired the first chapter I wrote of Beneath the Sicilian Stars, in which a Sicilian American fisherman in Pittsburg, California, is dragged from his home in his slippers and pajamas and arrested for being "potentially dangerous," despite his service on the same side as the U.S. during World War I and his son's enlistment in the Navy.
When I speak with groups about this history, I often reference The Minority Report, a dystopian novella by Philip K. Dick, in which predictive policing leads to arrests for crimes people have not yet committed.
It felt impossible when the Steven Spielberg movie came out in 2002, but history reminds us that some things are stranger than fiction. I wrote this novel to spotlight these injustices and help us recognize their echoes and dangers today.
Download the full list and more details in Report to the Congress of the United States: A Review of the Restrictions on Persons of Italian Ancestry During World War II.