The degree of Ignorance of "The Wartime Violation of Italian American Civil Liberties" in Academic and Journalistic circles is ASTOUNDING and just short of Criminal !!!!

These civil rights violations were similar in many ways to those imposed during 1938 in Italy against the Jewish community, where 50,000 Jews were affected.

In February of 1942, 600,000 Italian Americans were affected and subjected to
FDR's Presidential Fiat, that included forced evacuations/relocations, restrictions
and limitations on person and property, extending to job losses.

Ironically and Incredulously, at the same time, while their grand parents, parents and relatives were being subjected to this Gestapo like conduct, the same number of Italian Americans, 600,000, were serving in the US Military, losing their lives in a disproportionately high number.

As you may recall, just two months ago, Larry DiStasi had to "enlighten" Pearson Publishing, one of the largest supplier of school books, that indeed the "Una Storia Segreta" happened!

Now, in the most recent issue of US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT, they refer to
the Japanese American WWII Violation of Civil Rights, and completely omit any reference to the WWII Violation of ITALIAN AMERICAN Civil Rights!!!

Larry DiStasi "sets straight" US News and World Report, with the letter below.

For those of you with "friends" in the Media, please forward this Report.
To the Italian American organizations, a supporting letter to USN&WP would be appropriate.
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AMERICAN ITALIAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
Western Regional Chapter
P.O. Box 533
(415) 868-0538
Bolinas, CA   94924

September 23, 2003

Editor
U.S. News & World Report
1050 Thomas Jefferson St. N.W.
Washington, DC  20007

Dear Sirs:

A recent issue of yours made note of the "100 Top Events in US History," and included the Japanese Internment as one of them. Given that the civil liberties of more than 100,000 Americans of Japanese descent were violated, your inclusion of this event is quite just and proper. What I would like to point out, however, is that your inclusion of the Japanese Internment alone tends to reaffirm the erroneous notion that persons of Japanese descent were the only "enemy" group thus affected.

This "truth" has been repeated for half a century in newspaper accounts, magazine articles like yours, history texts, and government documents.

The real truth, one that I and Italian Americans throughout this nation have been trying for over a decade to publicize is quite different. The real truth is that 600,000 resident aliens of Italian descent nationwide were branded as "enemy aliens," severely restricted as to movement and possessions, and required to carry pink ID booklets under pain of internment.

The real truth is that approximately 3200 "enemy aliens" of Italian descent were arrested, and some 300 interned in camps like Fort Meade, Maryland or McAlester, Oklahoma run by the U.S. Army, not one of them ever charged with a crime.

The real truth is that some 10,000 resident aliens of Italian descent in California were forced to leave their homes and businesses (we call it evacuation, to distinguish it from the Japanese relocation) located in "prohibited zones" established along the west coast, including hundreds in cities such as Eureka, Pittsburg, Stockton, Richmond, El Cerrito, Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, and Monterey. They were not treated as individuals. They were forced to move out of those zones en masse because they had been born in Italy, a nation with which the United States was at war, and that made them too "dangerous" to remain in 'sensitive' zones.

The same fate befell German-born enemy aliens-nearly 11,000 of whom were arrested and/or interned, 300,000 of whom were restricted. Indeed, the initial measures (restrictions, registration, internment, evacuation) taken against persons from all three enemy alien groups were identical.

In short, what is missing from your inclusion of the Japanese internment is the corresponding fact that nearly one million immigrants from Italy and Germany were also affected by the same wartime suspicion that resulted in the Japanese relocation: they had to register in February of 1942 as enemy aliens, and carry the pink ID booklets (with photo and fingerprints) resulting from that registration at all times; their homes and persons were subject to search and seizure at any time; thousands were interned for periods ranging from several months to several years; and countless numbers of them, by being branded not just as aliens, but as enemies of their adopted country, were instilled with a sense of shame that persists among many to this day.

This despite the fact that huge numbers of their children served in combat as soldiers and sailors and marines, all the while knowing that at the very time they were risking their lives for their nation, their parents were under suspicion by that same nation, many of them forced to leave their homes and businesses.

My point is that, to be so treated is injury enough; to be left out of historical lists like yours greatly compounds the injury. That is why a growing body of work has attempted to rectify the widespread ignorance of these matters. Stephen Fox's book, The Unknown Internment, (Twayne: 1990), which broke this story, has been available for more than a decade. The traveling exhibit of which I am project director, Una Storia Segreta: When Italian Americans Were 'Enemy Aliens,' opened in San Francisco in 1994, and has traveled to over 50 sites nationwide.

Accounts of its appearances have been written in newspapers such as the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Los Angeles Times, the New Haven Register, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Sun-Times, the San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle, and countless papers in smaller regions, as well as on Good Morning America, and in a history channel documentary.

Our website, www.segreta.org, has been in existence since 1996. My own book, Una Storia Segreta: The Secret History of Italian American Evacuation and Internment During World War II, (Heyday Books: 2001), is available in bookstores and on Amazon.com.

Most conspicuously, the aforementioned exhibit led to national legislation-The Wartime Violation of Italian American Civil Liberties Act-that passed the U.S. Congress in October of 2000, and was signed into Public Law #106-451 on November 7, 2000 by then-President Clinton.

As mandated by that law, in November of 2001, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a report-Report to the Congress of the United States: A Review of the Restrictions on Persons of Italian Ancestry During World War II-which details many of the restrictions that I have briefly outlined above.

Our hope was that this report would end, once and for all, the false and demeaning statements found in newspapers and texts, and which are reflected in reports like yours. Unfortunately, that is not yet the case. Historical "experts" like the ones responsible for your list continue to deny by omission what happened to all three enemy alien groups.

I would suggest, therefore, that the necessary steps be taken to correct or amend your list. If you require additional materials on these events, I and others would be glad to provide them. And I should very much like to hear from you how you propose to rectify the erroneous impression arising from the omissions I have pointed out.

Respectfully,

Lawrence DiStasi
Newsletter Editor
Project Director
Una Storia Segreta

cc: Dona DeSanctis, OSIA; John Marino, NIAF,
Cong. Mike Honda, Cong. Eliot Engel
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Yet, if an Academician or Journalist were to exhibit a lack of knowledge of the similar Jewish experience, we would have to label them a "Retardee".

4 years later, (before the US unilaterally declared war on Italy),