Posters like these had a profound and chilling effect on the Italian populace, as it did on the German and Japanese population too. At that time, my mother was in High School, and my father was working in the Hudson News stand at the Hoboken train station. Since both sides of my family lived and worked in Jersey City (Hudson County, NJ), they would most likely have seen these posters every day. These types of posters were omnipresent, especially in cities that held strategic value. Posters, such as the one shown here, were put up in public places throughout the nation – it warned people not to speak the enemy’s language: German, Italian and Japanese. US Government, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons With old photos and publications coming online in the 21st century, the vast scope and impact of the restrictions placed on over 600,000 persons of Italian ancestry during World War 2 became clearer. It became the vehicle to publish our expose & review of the USDOJ report. This stunning report was the catalyst that brought this website into existence. This report revealed the many restrictions, including loss of civil rights, employment and assets, as well as possible internment in camps for suspect Italians in America during World War II. This resulted in a groundbreaking publication called report is called “A Review of the Restrictions on Persons of Italian Ancestry during World War 2”. Public Law 106-451 (Signed by President Clinton on November 7, 2000) tasked the United States Department of Justice (USDOJ) with the responsibility of declassifying secret files and producing a thorough report that would reveal the truth and the scope of what happened to the Italian-American people during World War 2. So why was the Italian language practically forbidden for us? A possible reason began to piece itself together when the history of the Italian internments in the United States was revealed. They had learned English along the way, and their use of English was flawless. But they worked hard and built a popular restaurant business. Neither of them had more than a grade-school education. They met in Jersey City and started a life together. My maternal grandparents came to America as penniless teenagers. And part of being American was speaking English, the one common language that binds us together as a society. I really didn’t question it, as I always understood that being an American meant that you had a chance at a better life if you worked hard enough and assimilated into the culture. Then why, during my childhood, did my father never mention that he had once been fluent in Italian? Why was my mother so adamant about identifying as an American first? Why did the Italian language only surface in the privacy of our home when an older family member came to dinner? He must have been fluent, as his primary caretaker only spoke Italian. It meant that for the first 9 years of his life, he only spoke Italian with his mother at home. Her inability to speak, read or write in English clued me in to something my father had knew. My dad was nine only years old when she died. She did not speak English, and never learned, having passed away at a very young age. She was illiterate and yet had emigrated to America for the chance of a better life. Looking back into my father’s past, I found that his mother could only speak Italian, and could not read or write. I once asked my mother why we didn’t speak Italian, and her response was quick and certain: “Because we are Americans”. Otherwise, English was the one and only language in our house. If it was in Italian, we wanted to know what was being kept from us. It also sent us kids tuning in from the kitchen on a mad scramble to find the Italian-to-English dictionary. My maternal grandmother would tell a joke in English, and then deliver the punchline in Italian, sending the people around the table into fits of laughter. And this only happened when they wanted to keep something private, like some bad news or the punchline to a dirty joke. The only time my parents said anything in Italian was when talking with older relatives around the Sunday dinner table. I had often wondered why my parents never taught us Italian at home. Decades later the task is much harder to accomplish given my time constraints and the ever-present feeling of exhaustion that accompanies a busy career and raising a family.
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