rtrapasso
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quote:
ORIGINAL: AW1Steve
I think the major bone of contention is that all enemy aliens were interned. In the case of the Japanese , many interned were actuall US citizens. But the executive order said any body who was seen as a danger could be relocated from a vital defense area (like near the coasts or a war production area). A Japanese American living next to Mare Island would probably be picked up. One living in Kansas wouldn't. I don't know if it was right or wrong (perhaps we will never know) but scared people do extreme things. And on December 8 , 1941 the people of the United States were very , very scared and very, very , very angry. The armed forces of Japan were 3,000 + miles away (but closing) , but your Japanese American neighbor is right in front of you. An angry , irrational man is going to kick his neighbor. On December 8 , 1941 I think that US was a little irrational. It doesn't make it right , just understandable.
quote:
ORIGINAL: kaleun
I read a few years ago a piece by Tammy Bruce (Tammy Bruce: The death of right and wrong) I can't get to my copy until the weekend, so I can't quote exactly, but the general gist is as follows:
She was taking a class in some west coast university and the issue of internment of Japanese Maericans came up; She mentioned that Italian Americans and German Americans were interned too. She was almost pilloried until the professor reluctantly stepped in and asked if she had any proof. The next class she provided the appropriate references.
Again, I can't provide the actual reference until the weekend, but it appears that at least some German americans and Japanese Americans were interned too.
i've done a bit of research into this (having family members that COULD have been affected) - AFAIK - the Germans and Italians that were interned were not citizens, but foreign nationals... and not all those were rounded up... it depended on if the authorities felt that they represented a danger...
For instance - an older Italian woman with 3 sons in the US Army or Navy would probably not get rounded up, while a single Italian businessman living in the US would. And yes, there were several thousand persons of foreign nationality interned.
But the Japanese that were interned WERE citizens - many (most?) of them born in the US, and were never citizens of Japan. Had the same criteria for Japanese had been applied for Italians (for instance), my Grandma, Father, and aunts and uncles would have been interned.
They DID seize my grandmothers radio (that was capable of shortwave reception.)
EDIT - there is a Wiki article about this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_American_internment
"Thus, at the outbreak of WW2, for example, an Italian businessman temporarily living in the US, Italian diplomats, Italian students studying in the US, Italians working at the World's Fair in New York—all of these people became, by definition, "enemy aliens" the instant that Italy declared war on the US. In some cases, such temporary residents are expelled—in the case of diplomats—or given a chance to leave the country when war is declared. Some are interned, as were the Italian merchant seamen caught in US ports when their ships were impounded (discussed below) in 1939 when war broke out in Europe. The members of the "Italian community" in the United States presented an unusual problem. Defined in terms of national origin, it was the largest community in the US, having supplied a steady flow of immigrants from Italy between the 1880s and 1930. By 1940 there were, thus, millions of US-born "Italian Americans" in the United States—native-born American citizens. However, there were also a great many Italian "enemy aliens"—more than 600,000, according to most sources. These were not Italian students, diplomats, or businessmen, but rather 600,000 Italians who had immigrated during the previous decades and had never become naturalized citizens of the United States.
The laws regarding "enemy aliens" did not make a distinction among, say, pro-Fascist Italian businessmen living for a short time in the US and trapped there when war broke out, anti-Fascist refugees from Italy who might have arrived a few years earlier intending to become US citizens (but who had not completed the process of naturalization), and those who had emigrated from Italy at the turn of the century and raised entire families of US native-born "Italian Americans" but who, themselves, had never been naturalized. They were all simply "enemy aliens"."
"The majority (approx. 60%) of the Japanese community interned were, in fact, native-born US citizens [10][11] and were not arrested under the Enemy Alien Act, but were simply "persons" removed under the War Relocation Authority.
Generally speaking, that was not the case with members of the Italian community. Although there were anomalous cases of US native-born Italian Americans being caught in the round-up, the others had been born in Italy and were still Italian citizens, even if many of them had resided in the US for decades.
Di Stasi [12] cites a number of such cases of mistreatment and internment of "Italian Americans," although he apparently defines "Italian American" as anyone within the Italian community, native-born US citizens or Italian-born non-US citizens."
"Hundreds of Italians were arrested in the months immediately after Pearl Harbor. By June of 1942, the total reached 1,521 Italian aliens arrested by the FBI. [21] About 250 individuals were interned for up to two years in military camps in Montana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas.
Italy's surrender on September 8, 1943 brought about the release of most of the Italian American internees by year's end. Some had been paroled months after "exoneration" by a second hearing board appealed for by their families. Nonetheless, most of the men had spent two years as prisoners, moving from camp to camp every three to four months. [22]"
This doesn't touch on the Germans and other nationalities that declared war on the US, but i think things were somewhat similar.
< Message edited by rtrapasso -- 9/25/2007 9:02:09 PM >
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RE: OT- Ken Burns WW2 - 
If I can make a suggestion for your viewing enjoyment. Watch "the war" with a WW2 vet. It makes all the difference. I don't really think Burns was as concerned about the history as he was paying tribute. Think of this as his WW2 memorial.
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