Newsletter, May, 2007

Last Saturday, April 28, I attended a very well organized meeting under the title: The Alien Files, Hidden Stories of World War II. This is the third meeting I attended under this title and it was the best attended. I believe more than 300 men and women were present listening attentively from 1- to 5pm to presentations and lectures given by either victims of “The World War II Alien Enemy Control Program” or their descendents.

By now, 2007, it is a well-known fact that the American Government interned many thousands of American aliens and some citizens who belonged to the Japanese ethnic group. What is not known is the fact that the same faith happened to thousands of people of Italian and German background. All three nationalities were present.

In the evening, at 7 pm a play was staged under the heading: Freedom Lost: Three One- Act Plays on Aliens in World War II. Here is part of the flyer giving details.

The World War II Alien Enemy Control Program

The United States implemented Three programs to control and imprison civilians considered a threat to the country during World War II. In all three, aliens as well as citizens whose ethnicity was suspect were targeted, as were their families. The first program, run by the Department of Justice, focused on enemy aliens – German, Italian, and Japanese nationals, residing in the U.S. after the start of the war. The second program, run by the War Relocation Authority, focused on the Japanese American Community. The third, little known program was run by the special War Problems Division of the State Department. Persons of German, Italian, and Japanse ancestry living in Latin American countries were arrested and many eventually interned in the U.S.

              In the weeks following December 7, 1941, thousands of Germans, Italian, and Japanese so called “dangerous enemy aliens” were arrested by the FBI. The arrests were done under the authority of the “Alien Enemy Act,” which specifies that citizens of enemy nations can be “apprehended, restrained, secured and removed” due to a declared war or an attempted, or threatened invasion of the U.S. Proclamations signed by President Roosevelt  immediately after Pearl Harbor declared that all Germans, Italian, and Japanese aliens age fourteen and over now deemed “enemy aliens” who were required to register and carry certificates of  identification. Approximately 600,000 Italians, 300,000 Germans, and 100,000 Japanese registered as enemy aliens” who were subject to removal from prohibited or restricted areas and indefinite internment.

              In 2001 the Enemy Alien Files Exhibit Consortium, with scholars and writers from the German, Italian, and Japanese American communities, created a photo narrative exhibit telling the story of the World War II Alien Enemy Control Program. In 2006 the consortium received a grant from the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program to produce educational materials on World War II enemy alien history

An enemy alien Curriculum Package with seventeen lesson plans is now available to teachers. The seventeen lesson plans present the history of the Alien, Enemy Control Program from the perspective of the German, Italian, and Japanese American communities. Included in the Curriculum Package (available at gaic.info) are the scripts of three one act plays:

Zip, The White Line, and the Master Tailor’s Wife—intended for classroom reading and dramatization. Each scrip is based on Alien Enemy Control Program documents. Those scripts, either performed in class by students, or performed for students by actors in a formal theater setting, will serve as a stimulating invitation to teachers and students for a classroom study of the World War II Alien Enemy Control Program.

              Events depicted in the play Zip are based on two documents by Eberhard Fuhr: My internment by the U.S. Government (2001), and Baseball in Internment in Texas 1942 – 47.

Events in: The White Line are inspired by episodes described in the The Unknown Internment: An Oral History of the Relocation of Italian –Americans during World War II, by Steve Fox, and Una Storia Secreta: edited by Lawrence DiStasi, which includes the essay “Mala Notre: The relocation Story in Santa Cruz”, by Geoffry Dunn.