During WWII as well as after, even today you might say, there is anti-German and anti-Japanese setiment formed by the war. Was there ever an anti-Italian sentiment? Were we ever putting Italian-Americans into camps because we thought they posed a security risk?
Keep in mind that the US was only at war with Italy for a little over a year. In 1943, they switched sides.
A small number of Italians were relocated from areas on the West Coast. I believe most of these were Italian nationals and not Italian-Americans. Most of the Italians lived near ports and were thought to be security risks.
The program was never fully implemented and later rescinded.
There is a book on the topic: [ital]Uncivil Liberties: Italian Americans under siege during World War II[/ital] by Stephen Fox. (It was also called "The Unknown Internment, but it’s been republished.)
You may also wish to visit this link: http://www.io.com/~segreta/
In Britain, German nationals were interned shorly after the outbreak of war (ironically, quite a few were German Jews who had fled Nazi persecution; it took no little time for British bureacracy to sort out sheep from goats). IIRC a very large detention area was set up on the Isle of Man.
Italians (although only men, I think) in the UK were rounded up after Il Duce courageously declared war on France in June of 1940. My mother remembers most of the fish and chip and ice cream shops in her area of Scotland were run by Italians (as some still are!), and the Scots were annoyed at losing their staple food supply to internment camps!
In Canada, the War Measures Act allowed the federal government to imprison anyone without trial “at His Majesty’s pleasure;” i.e. for as long as they wanted. German nationals, along with Canadian Nazi Party leaders, and for good measure, the head of the Communist Party of Canada, were rounded up in September 1940, with the Italians joining them after June of 1940.
I believe that, as in Britiain, many were released after several months, but required to report regularly to the local police or RCMP to keep tabs on their whereabouts.
There was some reason to be concerned; tales (mostly exaggerated) of Nazi “fifth column” activity in the Spanish Civil War had put spy fever in the mind of most governments. There were vocal (although numerically small) Fascist parties in Canada, the largest being the Canadian Unity Party, centred in Quebec, which sadly has a history of anti-semitic feeling.
I have in my collection a recruitment form for the Italian Fascist Party of Canada, circa 1928-30 period, which was circulated among Italian smelter workers in a small British Columbia town called Trail. The form is almost entirely in Italian, so I assume that their main target for recruitment were new immigrants.
Launcher may train without warning.
Of course, I meant to write “September 1939.”
Launcher may train without warning.