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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

#91

Post by beat »

paulddraper wrote: post #72
beat wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Okay... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in... https://en.wikipedia.org/wik…

Well, it depends on your point. Your point seemed to be that Arab Muslims are uniquely violent, that terrorism is their own thing. Look at the 1970s, and you see plenty of terrorism from Europeans.

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

#92

Post by dragonwriter »

paulddraper wrote: post #64
URSpider94 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I call complete BS. "The 1909 murder of Elsie Sigel in New York, of which a Chinese person was suspected, was blamed on the Chinese in general and led to physical violence. "The murder of Elsie Sigel immediately grabbed the front pages of newspapers, which portrayed Chinese men as dangerous to "innocent" and "virtuous" young white women. This murder led to a surge in the harassment of Chinese in communities across th…

Well, "complete BS" right back. > portrayed Chinese men as dangerous to "innocent" and "virtuous" young white women Suspecting a group of criminal activity is hardly terrorism; you could have just quoted attitudes towards blacks for a less obscure analogy. > So your allegation that the linkage of Muslims to terrorist extremism is unique is provably untrue. I never said that no other group has ever been linked to terr…

> I never said that no other group has ever been linked to terrorism. I said it hasn't ever been close to the scale it is now, with major attacks in every culture across dozens of countries.

Actually, it was far worse (and more coordinated, backed by—among others—both major superpowers) during much of the Cold War, it's just that the armed forces using terrorism as a mechanism (especially ones successful in seizing and holding territory on the scale the "Islamic State" has) were more likely to be popularly labelled as militias or revolutionaries of whatever ideology their rhetoric focussed on (Communist, etc.) or, by governments sympathetic to their cause, simply as "freedom fighters". The ones that were labelled "terrorists" rather than other things were the ones that were comparatively unsuccessful.

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

#93

Post by conistonwater »

yesbabyyes wrote: post #57
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…

I know it's OT, but didn't Sweden also do quite some nation-building in Russia once? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varangians

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

#94

Post by throwawayww947 »

KirinDave wrote: post #75

I like this article because it reminds us that "whiteness" is not actually a strictly racial identity. There are numerous factors that make someone "white" in America, which makes them acceptable to white nationalists. These purity rules can change over time to represent what's politically expedient. Many young Americans are shocked to learn that Italian and Irish (who are often a baseline of appearance in modern Ame…

First, the article doesn't discuss 'whiteness', so your comment is something of an irrelevant narrative imposition.

Second, it's intellectually dishonest to imply that this had anything to do with a malleable concept of race. Italy and the US were at war during WW2, and the additional scrutiny was very clearly based upon ancestral nationality, rather than ethnic, lines.

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

#95

Post by blincoln »

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…

I spot-checked the stats you linked to, and 100% of the "acts of terrorism" in which 100 or more people were killed were committed by paramilitary groups like ISIS and the Taliban, and took place outside the US.

Those are horrific acts, but IMO are more akin to the US' behaviour in Vietnam, or Blackwater contractors in Iraq. Would you support a ban on Americans travelling to other countries because of those events?

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

#96

Post by burkaman »

throwawayww947 wrote: post #94
KirinDave wrote: post #75

I like this article because it reminds us that "whiteness" is not actually a strictly racial identity. There are numerous factors that make someone "white" in America, which makes them acceptable to white nationalists. These purity rules can change over time to represent what's politically expedient. Many young Americans are shocked to learn that Italian and Irish (who are often a baseline of appearance in modern Ame…

First, the article doesn't discuss 'whiteness', so your comment is something of an irrelevant narrative imposition. Second, it's intellectually dishonest to imply that this had anything to do with a malleable concept of race. Italy and the US were at war during WW2, and the additional scrutiny was very clearly based upon ancestral nationality, rather than ethnic, lines.

Obviously the war is a big part of this, but the article makes it clear that wasn't the only factor. Right near the beginning:

> Italian-Americans had faced prejudice for decades by the time the order was drafted, says Guglielmo. Italians were the biggest group of immigrants to the United States who passed through Ellis Island for much of the late 19th and early 20th century; between 1876 and 1930, 5 million Italians moved to the U.S. Not without backlash: By the 1920s, pseudo-scientists and polemicists in the 1920s popularized the notion that Italians were a separate race from Anglo-Americans.

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

#97

Post by conistonwater »

krapp wrote: post #81
KirinDave wrote: post #75

I like this article because it reminds us that "whiteness" is not actually a strictly racial identity. There are numerous factors that make someone "white" in America, which makes them acceptable to white nationalists. These purity rules can change over time to represent what's politically expedient. Many young Americans are shocked to learn that Italian and Irish (who are often a baseline of appearance in modern Ame…

>Many young Americans are shocked to learn that Italian and Irish (who are often a baseline of appearance in modern America)were once not only considered not "white", but were demonized even as much as other races that Europe has traditionally looked down on. This was parodied in the movie Blazing Saddles, set in the American wild west, with a quote that I'd be [edit: apparently not] banned for repeating verbatim.

This? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boO4RowROiw "All right, we'll give some land to the niggers and the chinks... But we don't want the Irish!" It's a nice film, its director made quite a few good films (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Brooks#Film).

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

#98

Post by [deleted] »

krapp wrote: post #81
KirinDave wrote: post #75

I like this article because it reminds us that "whiteness" is not actually a strictly racial identity. There are numerous factors that make someone "white" in America, which makes them acceptable to white nationalists. These purity rules can change over time to represent what's politically expedient. Many young Americans are shocked to learn that Italian and Irish (who are often a baseline of appearance in modern Ame…

>Many young Americans are shocked to learn that Italian and Irish (who are often a baseline of appearance in modern America)were once not only considered not "white", but were demonized even as much as other races that Europe has traditionally looked down on. This was parodied in the movie Blazing Saddles, set in the American wild west, with a quote that I'd be [edit: apparently not] banned for repeating verbatim.

[deleted]

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

#100

Post by blincoln »

cafard wrote: post #71
joshuaheard wrote: post #17

I researched this some after Trump's executive order, and it is interesting because most people know about the Japanese internment because it was the largest, but we also interned Italians and Germans. These three groups were also prohibited from buying certain items that could potentially be used in sabotage.

Nations have commonly interned enemy aliens, e.g. P.G. Wodehouse. However, one hell of a lot of the "Japanese" interned were in fact native-born citizens. My German-born great-grandparents were not molested by the government during WW I, though there was harassment of Germans and German-speakers. And in WW II the US had admirals and generals with names like Nimitz, Eisenhower, Eichelberger, Gerow.

Counterpoint: my German great-grandparents and their relatives were interred by the US during WWII. They lost most of their possessions, just like the Japanese prisoners.
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