"Don't Speak the Enemy's Language!"
When Speaking Italian Was a Crime > Page 1, 2, 3
Traveling Exhibit
Una Storia Segreta (the words in Italian mean both "a secret story" and "a secret history") has helped uncover a story that had remained hidden for 50 years because of the silence—first imposed by the government, then adopted as protective cover by those affected—that had always surrounded it. Not only was the story suppressed from historical accounts, but the Italian American community itself remained largely unaware of its existence.
The exhibit documents some of what happened in the days following Pearl Harbor: the internment of "dangerous" aliens beginning on the night of December 7; the re-registration of all enemy aliens and restrictions on their possessions and movements; the evacuation of thousands of aliens from "prohibited zones" on the West Coast; and the enforcement, again on the West Coast, of a stringent 8 PM to 6 AM curfew. Failure to comply with any element could, and often did, lead to arrest and detention.
Campaign to Acknowledge Discrimination
Nevertheless, whenever conflict between the U.S. and another country erupts, the talk of internment of the nationals involved flares once again. During the Cold War, it was the Russians; then it was the Cubans; and as recently as the 1990 Gulf War, Iraqi Americans were threatened with internment. What should be explicitly realized is what is fundamental to America's creed: to condemn one of us on the basis of our origins, national or otherwise, or on the basis of our native tongue, is to condemn us all.
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Newsletter
A traveling exhibit titled Una Storia Segreta, sponsored by the Western Chapter of the American Italian Historical Association, is dedicated "to those who endured the confusions and losses of World War II largely in silence." The exhibit uses artifacts, texts, and the stories of the victims to detail the trials and travails of the Italian Americans who were assumed to be traitors in their adopted land.
Una Storia Segreta also serves as the centerpiece of a campaign to win acknowledgement of wartime discrimination against Italian Americans, some of whom lost their livelihoods because of the panic. A bill in Congress, Wartime Violations of Italian American Civil Liberties Act (HR 2442) which has passed the House of Representatives, would require the U.S. Department of Justice to compile a report detailing injustices suffered by Italian Americans and would request a formal acknowledgement of these injustices by the Presidents. The bill does not ask for an apology or compensation. In Canada, where Italian aliens were also interned, the government issued a public apology in 1990.
