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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

#51

Post by maxerickson »

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…

State run eugenics programs continued in the US into the 1960s and 1970s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/unwanted-sterilizati...

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

#52

Post by toyg »

paulddraper wrote: post #33

Nice thoughts, but none of the groups you mentioned in your analogy have the worldwide penchant for terrorism that Muslim groups do. Berlin, Brussels, New York, Israel, Orlando, etc. Italians, Germans, Swedes, Jews, and Japanese didn't immigrate to other countries and slaughter its citizens. I understand the tiny minority is the problem; just don't think your analogy to these other groups is an apt one.

Yeah, the Irish never did any terrorism worldwide; no gun-running, dealing in explosives, managing international supply networks from Palestine to the US... none of that, totally. Same for the Germans and absolutely my fellow Italians - if we ever did that, there would be books and movies all over! The Japanese absolutely never moved to mainland Asia with bellicose intents, and the Swedes never imposed themselves over their Baltic neighbours, and of course there was never any violence by the zionist movement that brought about Israel.

Oh and you should totally compare local ethnicities with a worldwide religious community of billions, that's totally the right thing to do.

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

#53

Post by URSpider94 »

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?

If you have a visa or Green Card and are from one of the 7 countries, or have a passport stamp from one of those countries, I would DEFINITELY consult an immigration lawyer before travelling outside the USA right now.

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

#54

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

Some people would look at this and say

"We unambiguously won WWII. Back then the 'greatest generation' knew what was needed to win a war, and wasn't squeemish about doing what needed to be done. WWII was the last major war we actually won. Since then we have become too politically correct to actually win wars. Trump will change that. We will win again."

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

#55

Post by smacktoward »

krapp wrote: post #31
melling wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 r…

Why do people keep assuming the intent behind this cannot be to ban Muslims because it doesn't ban all Muslims?

It's also worth noting that these things rarely begin with total action against an "other" -- they begin with baby steps, striking at the most vulnerable and easily scapegoated. The Holocaust didn't begin with Nazis shipping all the Jews to concentration camps, it began with things like protests against Jewish business owners (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_boycott_of_Jewish_busines...) and laws punishing Christians who married Jews (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws).

Which is why it's critical to oppose these horrible ideas when they are still in their early, tentative steps. Once they pick up momentum, they are much harder to stop.

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

#56

Post by paulddraper »

ctrl-j wrote: post #39
paulddraper wrote: post #33

Nice thoughts, but none of the groups you mentioned in your analogy have the worldwide penchant for terrorism that Muslim groups do. Berlin, Brussels, New York, Israel, Orlando, etc. Italians, Germans, Swedes, Jews, and Japanese didn't immigrate to other countries and slaughter its citizens. I understand the tiny minority is the problem; just don't think your analogy to these other groups is an apt one.

> Italians, Germans, Swedes, Jews, and Japanese didn't immigrate to other countries and slaughter its citizens. Neither do Muslims? I mean, show me the statistics that show that they have a higher terrorism rate than other groups. The IRA, the extremist christian groups, and the mentally ill all do a lot of damage as well, but they're not being banned from the USA. I think Muslims get targeted by the media because th…

Overall numbers are hard to come by, especially for smallish incidents, but of the 23 acts of terrorism in 2016 killing a hundred or more people, 100% of them were done by Muslims.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in...

> they're not being banned from the USA

Were there countries with huge numbers of extremely violent mentally ill people, I have no doubt the US would limit or halt immigration from those places.

There are huge numbers of radical or radical-sympathetic Muslims. If you have an open mind, I suggest getting a Muslim's take on the actual numbers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSPvnFDDQHk (warning, has numbers, may not be PC)

It's fine to support open immigration, but denying that there is an unusual problem with violence in the Muslim community is indefensible.

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

#57

Post by yesbabyyes »

paulddraper wrote: post #33

Nice thoughts, but none of the groups you mentioned in your analogy have the worldwide penchant for terrorism that Muslim groups do. Berlin, Brussels, New York, Israel, Orlando, etc. Italians, Germans, Swedes, Jews, and Japanese didn't immigrate to other countries and slaughter its citizens. I understand the tiny minority is the problem; just don't think your analogy to these other groups is an apt one.

I'm from Sweden, we actually have quite the reputation for slaughter:

- The case has been made that the Gothic tribe who sacked Rome originated from Sweden

- The Vikings pillaged and slaughtered in Russia, Britain, Continental Europe, the Mediterranean, even as far as Newfoundland

- During the Swedish Empire, Sweden colonized and occupied Finland and the Baltic states, and waged war on Continental Europe, conquering half of the Holy Roman Empire

- During the same period Sweden built forts in West Africa, I can tell you what they did there was not always pretty

- Under king Charles XII, Sweden waged war in first Russia, then Ukraine, then the Ottoman Empire, soundly defeated there tried to invade Norway

- Norway was invaded again and this time conquered in 1808, taking it as compensation for the loss of Finland to Russia in the Napoleonic wars

Now, that's just Sweden. Let's not mention Italy (Ethiopia, anyone), Germany (...) and Japan (oh boy).

You need to study your history.

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

#58

Post by beat »

soheil wrote: post #40
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…

Maybe a better question to ask is why those groups have not been afraid of others at any point? If true, what makes Italians, Germans, Swedes, Jews, Japanese, Muslims, Chinese and the Irish not engage in bigotry and hatred of others. Come to think of it isn't that a sizable segment of the world population? And if so maybe the remaining segment(s) need to be identified better.

Follow this through, and you find that racism is inherent in culture. The dominant culture uses race in order to oppress and scapegoat the minority culture, pretty much everywhere.

This doesn't make it okay, of course. This means we need to be that much more conscious of it, and take active steps to mitigate the effects of racism. (This is the distinction between "I'm not a racist" and anti-racism, btw)

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

#59

Post by jackhack »

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…

Thank you for pointing this out. This was "settled science" of the day and to question it put one against much of the world scientific community. Just as a flat earth and an Earth-centric universe were once completely accepted without question, so was this.

And today, in our age of satellites and electronic computers, we have our own misconceptions - areas where nagging little doubts or details that don't quite fit the model (and are therefore trivialized or ignored outright). Examples: The unidirectional linearity of time. String Theory vs classical quantum model. Or even the "big bang" model. Our (lack of) understanding gravity and quantum entanglement.

Hopefully future generations with more understanding will look back at us, shake their heads, and ask "how could they have been so naive?"

I think the answer is, we're really not that far removed from our ancestors scratching the dirt with sticks and learning to control fire. Hopefully with continued inspection (introspection?) we get closer to the truth of science and its beauty.

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

#60

Post by beat »

paulddraper wrote: post #56
ctrl-j wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Italians, Germans, Swedes, Jews, and Japanese didn't immigrate to other countries and slaughter its citizens. Neither do Muslims? I mean, show me the statistics that show that they have a higher terrorism rate than other groups. The IRA, the extremist christian groups, and the mentally ill all do a lot of damage as well, but they're not being banned from the USA. I think Muslims get targeted by the media because th…

Overall numbers are hard to come by, especially for smallish incidents, but of the 23 acts of terrorism in 2016 killing a hundred or more people, 100% of them were done by Muslims. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in... > they're not being banned from the USA Were there countries with huge numbers of extremely violent mentally ill people, I have no doubt the US would limit or halt immigration…

Go back to the 1970s, and you'll see similar numbers by the Irish.
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