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During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

#21

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

My great-uncle was one of them. A second-generation immigrant, his father forbade any utterance of Italian in his household. But my great-uncle - born American - nontheless dealt with discrimination, and so he went a step further and changed his Italian name to Bill Morgan.

Bill loved his country so much that when he failed the physical for the OSS - already an army captain - by being legally blind in one eye, he lied and cheated his way into a formal position helping the British train resistance fighters in Europe. He was just as conniving when he convinced his superiors to give him a mission to parachute behind enemy lines and lead a unit of French resistance fighters.

He made a career with the CIA. Even in the letter he gave me when I was born (he died before I met him), he described in great detail need to be fit in mind and body to serve your country.

He's buried in Arlington. So much for a threat to homeland security.

If anyone is interested, he documented his experiences of WWII in an exciting book, "The OSS and I." It's hard not to enjoy a book with a chapter titled: "How to blow up a bridge."

https://www.amazon.com/S-S-I-WILLIAM-J-MORGAN/dp/B0086N639A

Re: During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

#22

Post by finid »

falsestprophet wrote: post #4
minikites wrote: post #2

It's a shame so many people can't function without being afraid/angry at a dehumanized "other". Sometimes it's outright malice (Syrian refugees today), sometimes it's softer but just as harmful ("the Japanese are going to take over the world!!" in the 1980s) and sometimes it's from within (Japanese and Italians in WWII, the entire history of black citizens in the USA). And when a new "enemy" arrives that's more appea…

It is important to understand the United States is leading a bombing campaign that has recently killed over 50,000 people in Syria and Iraq. Killing people on a vast scale from countries and also accepting immigrants (including military age males) from the same country at the same time is more complicated than #WereACountryOfImmigrants.

But think about this for a second; if not for us destabilizing those countries, there will be no refugee crisis to deal with.

We basically took the most and arguably the most prosperous country in Africa (Libya) and ruined it. Now we're refusing to take in those fleeing from our mess. We did the same thing in Iraq and Syria.

But it seems we're not done yet. Iran is next.

Bit is anybody protesting war against countries that can do us no harm? Nah! It makes for good war video games and Hollywood war movies.

Re: During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

#23

Post by mrgoldenbrown »

daemonk wrote: post #7

Seems like a lot of these historical incidents are being brought up recently. They are certainly interesting and perhaps show that humanity as a whole tend to repeat the same actions. But is it also the goal to attempt to justify the current immigration ban by citing history? Conway brought up the Obama's tightening of the Iraqi immigration during his term. Does that somehow justify Trump's immigration ban? I guess y…

People in Trump's camp have used the Japanese internment as "precedent" for a Muslim ban.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/us/politics/japanese-inte...

Re: During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

#24

Post by finid »

knz wrote: post #20
falsestprophet wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is important to understand the United States is leading a bombing campaign that has recently killed over 50,000 people in Syria and Iraq. Killing people on a vast scale from countries and also accepting immigrants (including military age males) from the same country at the same time is more complicated than #WereACountryOfImmigrants.

> United States is leading a bombing campaign that has recently killed over 50,000 people in Syria and Iraq Isn't it a bit disingenuous to omit the fact that both Iraq and Syria have areas experiencing active warfare? The bombing campaign is not occurring in a vacuum, is targeted at people engaged in warfare against us or our allies, and those conflicts have killed far more people than just the bombing campaign - inc…

Isn't it a bit disingenuous to omit the fact that both Iraq and Syria have areas experiencing active warfare?

But what you seem to ignore is that the active warfare in both countries was caused by us. And in Libya too.

Think about that. Those countries are now a mess because of "regime change".

Re: During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

#25

Post by canadian_voter »

dominotw wrote: post #16
ardit33 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Conway brought up the Obama's tightening of the Iraqi immigration during his term. Does that somehow justify Trump's immigration ban? -- No it doesn't What Trump did is not just stop immigration, but completely stop even people with valid visas, and green cards (Permanent Residents) from even entering. This is unheard off. Some of them were "detained", put with handcuffed for over 20 hrs. In the midst of it there we…

>Some of them were "detained", put with handcuffed for over 20 hrs. I have travel coming up in two months, this makes me nervous. Do you have a source for this by any chance?

It really depends where you're coming from and where you've been.

If your a former Prime Minister of an allied nation, you'll probably only be detained an hour[0].

Otherwise your mileage may vary[1]. Your local authorities can probably give you some guidance on this.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/02/0...

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/29/nyregion/airports-travele...

Re: During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

#27

Post by reese_john »

JackFr wrote: post #19

> By the 1920s, pseudo-scientists and polemicists in the 1920s popularized the notion that Italians were a separate race from Anglo-Americans. These scientists were 'pseudo' only in retrospect. It literally took a world war to knock eugenicists out of the mainstream. As we pat ourselves on the back today for being so rational and enlightened, we would do well to remember episodes like that and restore some sense of h…

Related: http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

Re: During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

#28

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

JackFr wrote: post #19

> By the 1920s, pseudo-scientists and polemicists in the 1920s popularized the notion that Italians were a separate race from Anglo-Americans. These scientists were 'pseudo' only in retrospect. It literally took a world war to knock eugenicists out of the mainstream. As we pat ourselves on the back today for being so rational and enlightened, we would do well to remember episodes like that and restore some sense of h…

To their credit, race was thought of differently before the discovery of the double helix. It was only until the 70s that people commonly believed that Neanderthals became white people because their bones were discovered in Europe, and that Homo Erectus created the Asian "race" because their bones were discovered in Asia.

Nowadays race more often means skin color and a deterministic culture, with the occasional addition of crude metrics such as IQ to justify preexisting biases.

Re: During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

#29

Post by melling »

mrgoldenbrown wrote: post #23
daemonk wrote: post #7

Seems like a lot of these historical incidents are being brought up recently. They are certainly interesting and perhaps show that humanity as a whole tend to repeat the same actions. But is it also the goal to attempt to justify the current immigration ban by citing history? Conway brought up the Obama's tightening of the Iraqi immigration during his term. Does that somehow justify Trump's immigration ban? I guess y…

People in Trump's camp have used the Japanese internment as "precedent" for a Muslim ban. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/us/politics/japanese-inte...

Why is called a Muslim ban? The Muslin world is around 1.7 billion people, and dozens of countries (almost 1/3 of world population):

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e4/Muslim_Percen...

And we have over 3 million Muslims in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_the_United_States

People seem to label everything in politics with a positive or negative name, depending on their beliefs.

The left and right are so noisy with their claims, I'm having a hard time filtering through all the noise. If we could use a little math in our labeling, we wouldn't get an equality on the ban being for "Muslims". Perhaps we could have our Deep Learning machines come up with Classification names.

Re: During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

#30

Post by conistonwater »

iambateman wrote: post #15

I love this article, because we have to remind people that Americans have been afraid of Italians and Germans and Swedes and Jews and the Japanese and Muslims and the Chinese and DEFINITELY the Irish at one time or another. Established groups feared new groups. But in the end, these people generally brought new innovations and economic growth and interesting new foods. They mashed new cultures with old - not without…

I don't know how well it works on Trump supporters, but there's something that bugs me about this argument. It seems to take a moral issue (do you treat other people well?), and replace it with an economic issue (do you know of inventions, food, or some economic benefit from those people?). I feel like it's a racing certainty that many Italian-Americans lived ordinary lives, and didn't do anything out of the ordinary—it's a quality shared by the vast majority of all people regardless of their origins. Shouldn't that be okay too? Otherwise, how important would someone have to be? Can we use binary search to find out?
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