Italian American Internment - War Relocation Centers

War Relocation Centers

A distinction must be made between:

• Italian Americans designated "enemy aliens" (non-U.S. citizens) as defined by Title 50 of the United States Code
• Italian Americans who were evacuated and interned under the War Relocation Authority. This authority was based on Executive Order 9066 (issued February 19, 1942) and Executive Order 9102 (issued March 18, 1942). These orders authorized the "removal from designated areas of persons whose removal is necessary in the interests of national security." That authority did not distinguish between native-born Americans and citizens of other nations living in the United States; the orders simply said "persons." This was the same basis upon which Japanese Americans were interned, an effort much larger in scale than Italian American internment. Indeed, both foreign-born and native-born Japanese Americans and both citizens and non-citizens were interned, though the majority (about 60 percent) were in fact native-born U.S. citizens. Italian Americans interned under the War Relocation Authority were not arrested under the Enemy Alien Act, but were simply "persons" removed under the War Relocation Authority.

Di Stasi 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 U.S. citizens or Italian-born non-U.S. citizens.