Top Image: Italian Americans gather in a display of patriotism during WWII. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in San Jose, California arrested Filippo Molinari, an Italian immigrant who sold subscriptions to L’Italia, a popular newspaper in his Italian American community. While held in custody, Molinari asked why he was being detained, only to be told that his arrest was “by order of the President.” 

A few days later, FBI agents forced Molinari and approximately 500 other “enemy aliens”—including more Italian nationals as well as Japanese and German immigrants from California—onto a train bound for an internment center in Missoula, Montana. Later, Molinari recalled how cold his feet were when he got off of the train and stepped onto the freshly-fallen snow. He realized that he still wore his slippers and pajamas because he was unable to grab a coat or any heavy winter clothes before his arrest.

Across the country, FBI agents continued to arrest Italian immigrants during the days immediately following America’s declaration of war on Japan, Germany, and Italy. In New York City—where both foreign and American-born Italians made up approximately 18 percent of the city’s population—the Berizzi family witnessed an event like that of Molinari. Agents awoke Louis Berizzi, his wife, and their American-born children when they banged on the door of their apartment and entered to search the home for evidence of sabotage. Berizzi’s daughter, Lucetta, remembered how harrowing and confusing her father’s arrest was:

“We were all sound asleep. My father was in his pajamas; they told him to get dressed, as they had orders to take him away. No explanation was given…They [FBI agents] stayed in his bedroom while he dressed, so we had no time to speak to him privately. They did not even give him time to gather personal effects or toiletries. We were pretty shaken…Several days after his arrest, we learned that my father’s office at Rockefeller Plaza had been locked and sealed by the Enemy Alien Custodian, and all my father’s assets were blocked.”

The FBI, backed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s issuance of Proclamation 2527 on December 8, continued to arrest and take into “custody” (a broad term that could mean being held in long-term internment centers for enemy aliens, extended detention, and/or arrest and later release) Italian immigrants who were classified as enemy aliens (some who had existing files with the Department of Justice because of political activities or group associations declared dangerous by the FBI) and displayed some behavior that could be considered suspicious, subversive, and designed to undermine America’s safety and defense. 

FBI agents confiscated property (including radios, weapons, and other materials that could lend themselves to conspiring against the United States) and arrested thousands of Italian immigrants—including Joe DiMaggio’s mother who lived in San Francisco, and famed NYC-based opera star Ezio Pinza. DiMaggio was able to coordinate his mother’s release and Pinza secured the help of Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in requesting legal assistance. Others like Molinari and Berizzi, however, were not so lucky.

The wartime story of removal and detainment tends to focus on Japanese Americans forced from their homes along the West Coast in early 1942 and held in camps, but more than 600,000 Italian Americans experienced some form of restrictions placed on them because of their enemy alien status. Not all 600,000 were detained in internment camps (418 Italian immigrants were held in internment centers) as this number includes Italian American communities along the West Coast who were subject to curfews and often unfounded searches and seizures. 

Still, the Department of Justice’s efforts to arrest foreign-born Italians with personal and familial ties to their homeland is an example of wartime fear and suspicion that greatly increased the surveillance powers of the federal government during World War II and resulted in hardship for Italian American families.

The story of Italian internment begins years before Pearl Harbor. Italians began to arrive in the United States in larger numbers beginning in the late nineteenth century through the early twentieth century because of political upheaval in their homeland and a demand for labor in America. By 1940, approximately 1,623,580 Italians had settled from coast to coast, in northern and southern communities, earning a living as manual laborers, shop owners, and fishermen. 

San Francisco, New York, and Philadelphia were cities with large Italian American communities, but southern cities like New Orleans also witnessed a growing Italian American population through the early twentieth century. Prejudice and discrimination against working-class Italians were pervasive and the ethnic stereotypes of Italians as inherent criminals were widespread, but many Italians naturalized and their children became part of a broad, multi-ethnic New Deal coalition that supported President Roosevelt and his economic, social, and political programs during the 1930s. By the 1940s, Italian Americans—such as Fiorello LaGuardia—had secured political positions of power, but the rise of Benito Mussolini in Italy gave pause to the Department of Justice, the FBI, and President Roosevelt.

As tensions increased in the Pacific and Europe, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover directed agents to begin gathering data on immigrants from communist and fascist nations. At the time, Hoover focused on Japanese, Italians, and Germans. By 1939, his bureau had amassed an impressive database of foreign-born nationals who required extra surveillance for their activities (which ranged from political and union activism to subscribing to ethnic language newspapers) and, in the event of war, internment. 

The lists became known as the ABC lists, with categories A, B, and C respectively characterized by high, moderate, and limited engagement with groups and organizations that could potentially double as subversive agencies. Beginning in the summer of 1941, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (part of the Department of Justice at the time) established procedures and centers in Montana, New Mexico, and North Dakota for interning enemy aliens should war occur.

The attack on Pearl Harbor triggered the implementation of the arrest and detention plans. On December 7, FDR issued Proclamation 2525, declaring all citizens of Japan ages 14 and older to be enemy aliens, making them subject to any regulations deemed appropriate by Attorney General FrancIs Biddle. The following day, FDR issued Proclamations 2526 and 2527, placing foreign-born Germans and Italians (respectively) within the same enemy alien category as foreign-born Japanese. Essentially, any individual from any enemy nation who had not initiated paperwork for naturalization was considered an enemy alien.