The Italian Americans

Sports Announcer

It's a jam-packed stadium today, seething with tremendous excitement, the bleachers are absolutely jam-packed. The Yankee groundkeepers are putting on the finishing touches, at the moment they're at the mound smoothing things off. A few of them are in right field. And now the ballgame is going to get underway. Just hear the cheers for the Yankees.

crowd cheering and applauding

Sports Announcer

Heinrich on first base, nobody out. Score 4 to 3 New York, DiMaggio up.

Narrator

On July 1st 1941, at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, Italian American Joe DiMaggio was on an electrifying 44 game hitting streak. Since May of that year, the specter of war in Europe were riveted by DiMaggio's exploits.

Geoffrey Dunn

In the summer of 1941, DiMaggio captures the imagination of the entire country. I don't think we quite can imagine how central this was to the American consciousness in the, in the year leading up to World War II.

Narrator

For Italian Americans, DiMaggio's success was personal.

Sonny Grosso

I used to get a ticket, a box ticket. I used to sell the ticket to sit in the bleachers so I could see DiMaggio, you know what I mean. Everybody I knew wanted to be Joe DiMaggio, nobody wanted to be the president or the mayor.

Narrator

Joe DiMa had risen to stardom from the hardscrabble life of Not interested in his father's life as a fisherman, DiMaggio spent his childhood playing baseball in the back lots of San Francisco.

Dunn

Boxing and baseball in the 20s and 30s were the great entranceway for ethnic communities to enter into the American mainstream. DiMaggio chooses baseball.

Narrator

By age 25, he was a genuine American hero; his face graced the covers of the country's most popular magazines.

Gay Talese

DiMaggio was one of the few American-Italians of my boyhood who got his name in the paper a lot but wasn't a gangster. Every vowel-ending surname was affiliated with alleged crime. DiMaggio wasn't that way. What was he? He was a ballplayer, and Americans cheered.

wood cracking

wood cracking

wood cracking

Narrator

Over the summer of 1941, DiMaggio blew past the major league record for consecutive games with a hit, and he kept on going.

Dunn

For Italian Americans it's like this high point of their existence here, and they're following every pitch, every game.

Onesti

I'm absolutely beside myself. I couldn't sleep.

Get up at 2

30 in the morning, and buy the paper. Three more hits, "Oh, Big Joe, look what you did for me."

Dunn

Here he is an American icon. He's revered by not only Italian Americans, but by kids of all shades of nationalities and colors across the country. He's a national hero. And then the following year, his parents are identified as enemy aliens.

Narrator

On the day the axis powers, President Roosevelt announced that all Italian immigrants who were not American citizens were to be treated as "enemy aliens." At Yankee Stadium, the ritual of fans waving Italian flags when DiMaggio stepped onto the field came to an abrupt end.

Dunn

DiMaggio has two brothers playing big league baseball. He and his brothers all go into the service and yet his parents are targeted as enemy aliens.

Lawrence Distasi

There were people who were talking about, "Oh, if we can just get to the President and let him know that even Joe DiMaggio's father is under restriction, maybe, maybe they'll let up on us." Of course, that wasn't going to work.

Dunn

I think it was a very conscious statement by the Federal Government to target them. They wanted to show all Italians that, "None of you are above this kind of suspicion." "If we can do this to the parents of an American hero, we can do it to anyone."

Narrator

In the decades leading up to World War II, Italians were finally making inroads into the American mainstream as charismatic politicians and businessmen drew them But even as they proved their loyalty on the old allegiances would come back to haunt them, and threaten to derail their American journey. The Roaring Twenties in New York City. Wall Street was booming and the skyline soaring. In nightclubs and restaurants across the city, the rich and powerful enjoyed lives of opulence previously unimagined. But, just blocks away from the glitz of 5th Avenue, New York's immigrant enclaves teemed with impoverished Italian Americans. For the nearly two million who were now settled throughout the United States, finding their foothold in America continued to be a struggle.

Fox

Italian immigrants worked hard. They hoped for the best for their kids, the classic American story that's happened over and over. But they were on the bottom of the immigrant pecking order. They had succeeded the Irish and they were now the lowest rank.

Narrator

The Irish, who'd come decades earlier, had taken control of New York City politics with their formidable democratic machine known as Tammany Hall. With its stranglehold on the city, Tammany doled out lucrative municipal jobs and union contracts to insiders, while most Italians were left out.

Fox

Tammany Hall is run by Irish politicians, and it's utterly corrupt. The cops are corrupt. The politicians are all on the take from gangsters.

Hamill

The Irish went early into politics. Once they had Tammany Hall and they could take the St. Patrick's Day parade and run it up Fifth Avenue and say, "You got the money baby, but we got the votes."

Narrator

But there was one outs take on Tammany Hall. A striving young politician from Italian East Harlem named Fiorello LaGuardia.

Fiorello LaGuardia

We'll not only clean the streets of this city, but I'm going to clean every department of every grafting Tammany politician and appoint honest men and women in their places!

Kessner

He felt in so many ways what it meant to be on the outside. He came to New York City. He wanted to be part of politics and Tammany was not open to Italian Americans and I think that that helped fuel that sense of outrage.

Narrator

The son of Italian immigrants, LaGuardia put himself through law school while working long It was through his caseworker that crude treatment of an experience that would

Kessner

LaGuardia describes in great detail about how the handling of these immigrants was so totally insensitive. How these people were shaking because of the possibility, that something might be seen in their eye, which would make them ineligible to come into the country, and meaning that their family would be broken up. He felt they needed to be treated with dignity, with respect and that was not happening.

Narrator

In 1917, LaGuardia became the first Italian American elected to Congress. He settled his young family in the Bronx while commuting to Washington DC. Then, during his second term, tragedy struck. First his baby daughter just months later he lost his wife Thea to tuberculosis.

Kessner

This would only congeal this sensitivity toward those who are vulnerable and they became very much a part of his politics. He would say to a friend, "Other politicians have their family, their wives; I have nothing but the people."

Narrator

More determined than ever to help Italian immigrants, LaGuardia and his young protg, Vito Marcantonio, opened a small office on 116th Street in Italian East Harlem, where he encouraged residents to come seek his help. But LaGuardia had to work hard to overcome Italian Americans' inherent distrust of government.

Gabbaccia

They had a lot of suspicion of the government as somebody who takes from you. They brought it from Italy. There's something cultural at the root there.

Narrator

LaGuardia used his office to draw them out and gain their trust. He saw early the potential to transform Italian Americans, now over 100,000 in East Harlem alone, into a powerful voting bloc.

Kessner

They came to him with their problems. They came to him with their issues. They needed help. He came to be someone that they trusted.

Meyer

It is something breathtaking, the number of thousands of people that were helped in a given year. Every single Saturday, the office was open until the last person left.

Orsi

Part of the lore was that he would actually come to your house if he had to. When you talk to people in East Harlem, what LaGuardia is celebrated for is his respect for the values of the family. When he took those values and transformed them into social policy, he transformed them into a political program for better housing, for cleaner streets, for better work.

Meyer

He was devoted to that community, and they were intensely loyal to him.

Narrator

Bolstered by his loyal constituents, in 1933, LaGuardia jumped into the mayoral race and resolved to take on the corrupt Tammany Hall. With the city in the midst of the great depression, his timing was right.

Kessner

Tammany had looted the city so that there was very little left. It was a city that was entirely enthralled to a kind of pessimistic fog. There was very little hope unless there was change.

Fiorello LaGuardia

I have been designated to lead the fight against Tammany Hall in the coming municipal elections.

Narrator

With his characteristic passion and resolve, LaGuardia campaigned on a strong anti-corruption platform.

Fiorello LaGuardia

This is a fight against a powerful, corrupt, greedy political machine.

Narrator

For once, Italian Americans had someone on the political front lines who could give them a voice.

Hamill

He was the first political name around whom people who were Italian, and others, could rally because he was speaking a language that connected them all. Even the people from the old country who didn't speak English enough to understand him, understood who he was, and if they could vote, they voted for him.

Narrator

On Election Day, Tammany thugs were out in full force in an effort to intimidate voters.

Kessner

Tammany's got enforcers carrying on their various techniques for subverting the political process. And LaGuardia's fearless. He would walk over, grab them by the lapels and actually get involved in fights.

Narrator

In an over 350,000 Italians Americans cast their votes for LaGuardia, and secured his victory. It was, as The Washington Post wrote, "A political revolution."

Justice McCook

Fiorello H. LaGuardia do solemnly swear that you will support.

Narrator

LaGuardia transformed the city and its politics. Once beaten down, New York was turned into a thriving metropolis. He dismantled Tammany Hall and took on the city's endemic crime problem, making a point of going after Italian American gangsters who ran the gambling rackets. His showmanship unmatched, the tabloids loved Fiorello and dubbed him "The Little Flower."

Fox

LaGuardia was one of the great characters in New York history. He was short and squat and pugnacious in a Napoleon-complex kind of way, but he's very effective.

Kessner

This was a hands-on government. If something happened, he was there.

Fox

He goes to fires. He has his own fireman's helmet. When there's a newspaper strike, he reads the funny papers over the radio so the kids can keep up on their favorite comic strips.

Fiorello LaGuardia

Next strip you will see Dick Tracy, you know, the fine stars of Dick Tracy, he's been a detective so long and he still has that slender form.

Fox

He's very refreshing, he's a great change.

Narrator

For his own people, the Italian Americans, LaGuardia would leave an enduring legacy. He broke down barriers to political power and gave Italians a voice. And he successfully transformed them into one of the nation's most powerful voting blocks.

Kessner

He got them involved in the electoral process; he broke barriers to do that. Once he did that, it became possible to bring them into the American story.

crowd cheering

Narrator

Just as Italian immigrants forged their own political paths, a voice was awakening in them nostalgia for their motherland, a force that threatened to divide their loyalties. Back in Italy, the charismatic and popular Prime Minister, Benito Mussolini, was making grand promises to revive his once great nation. And his message would bolster Italian Americans' sense of ethnic pride.

Vellon

Mussolini is going to give Italian Americans almost psychological sustenance. Rather than relying on the glory of Rome, this kind of ancient tradition, now they have something current that they could kind of grab onto and say, "Hey, this is what Italians are about."

Gabaccia

Mussolini seemed to, at first, symbolize a new and modern and assertive and positive Italy.

Narrator

Mussolini's to rebuild a broken Italy. He battled communism, and brought the Not yet aligned with Hitler, about his demonstrations of

Distasi

Mussolini promoted a great deal of pseudo Roman history. He was trying to imply that this was the second phase of the Roman Empire.

Narrator

His regime worked hard to spread this image of a mighty new nation to the millions of immigrants who had left since 1860, the vast majority of whom had settled in the United States.

Vellon

Mussolini wants to maintain this connection, a real nationalist, kind of, intimate connection with the motherland as a way to kind of promote what he's doing. He wants to make sure that his regime, in places like the United States, is looked well upon. Not only by Italians, but by Americans.

Narrator

In 1928, America's most widely read Italian language newspaper, "Il Progresso," went up for sale in New York City, and Mussolini saw a unique opportunity.

Vellon

Mussolini is concerned about who is going to buy "Il Progresso Italo Americano." And his contacts actually get involved and want to make sure that the new owners will be empathetic and sympathetic to the fascist regime.

Narrator

The prospective owner was a brash Italian American entrepreneur named Generoso Pope, who saw in newspaper publishing a way to broaden his own influence in America.

Pernicone

Pope had the money, made all kinds of promises, he's going to support the regime, and he takes over the paper.

Narrator

Generoso Pope was fascist leader, having made his fortune in the worlds' biggest capitalist economy.

Pernicone

Generoso Pope is a kind of Italian-American Horatio Alger story. He was born in a small village outside of Naples. He comes over by himself at age 15 with $10 in his pocket, and he doesn't speak a word of English.

Vellon

It's a clich, but it really is a "rags-to-riches" story. He came in 1906, and within months, he was working hauling water to the railroad workers who were building Pennsylvania Railroad Station. He worked his way up from superintendent to foreman. And by 1920, he was buying out his partner and owner of Colonial Sand and Stone, which would become the largest supplier of sand and gravel in the United States.

Pernicone

Within a little more than a decade, he is the richest Italian American in New York. But simply being rich was not enough for him. He wanted power and influence, prestige, and the avenue by which to acquire this was to acquire newspapers.

Narrator

Pope ran his newspaper shrewdly. He quickly doubled "Il Progresso's" circulation and expanded his media empire with 3 more Italian American newspapers.

Pernicone

Pope is the Rupert Murdoch of the Italian-American community, and his newspapers are the primary conduit for fascist propaganda.

Vellon

I don't think Pope was an ardent fascist, I think that he was a political opportunist. It was a mutually beneficial relationship. Mussolini used Pope to get his message out. And Pope used Mussolini the same way.

Narrator

Pope capitalized on his unique access to the popular Italian leader, making much of his private visits to Rome.

Vellon

It only enhanced his prestige within the Italian American community, hitching his wagon to Mussolini's popularity was a win-win for Pope.

Narrator

In 1933, Pope would help promote Mussolini's grandest propaganda feat of all. Intent on displaying Italy's new military might to the world, Mussolini sent Air Marshall, Italo Balbo, on a transatlantic voyage to America. Balbo's squadron of 25 seaplanes flew in perfect formation, heading to Chicago's World's Fair. Tens of thousands of Italian Americans gathered on the shores of Lake Michigan. Caught up in the spectacle of Italy's new found glory, they eagerly awaited the fleet's arrival.

Sparacio

Oh my God. Oh, it was a big deal in our neighborhood. In my house too. Especially my mom, she was really enthusiastic about it.

Liture

I was selling newspapers right on the beach there at Grand Avenue. The beach was covered. The traffic was blocked on Lakeshore Drive there at the time.

Narrator

With dramatic flair, Balbo and his pilots landed on Lake Michigan, greeted by the cheering throngs.

Liture

It was a sight to see. Italians were proud. It made them proud that he was able to come to America.

Sparacio

It was thrilling. It was absolutely thrilling to see them come in from all the way over there. He had a white suit, no one, he was a very handsome man, that Italo Balbo. Maybe that was part of his charm. I don't know.

Narrator

From Chicago, Balbo flew to New York City, where he was received by Generoso Pope and paraded before two million spectators. Later, to a cheering crowd, Balbo exalted, "Be proud you are Italians." "Mussolini has ended the era of humiliations."

Pernicone

You can't minimize for a second the popularity of Mussolini in the United States. I mean it's not just Pope. The entire cadre of prominent newspaper editors, lawyers, judges, various other kinds of politicians. All of them supporting Mussolini, all of them contributing to the mythology that is being created about this great regime. I mean Roosevelt referred to him as "that fine gentleman." And so for Italian Americans there is this idea that the respect and admiration for Mussolini can somehow reflect back upon them. We're not these lowly "cafone" anymore, that we've attained respectability and power.

Vellon

Most Italian Americans are just taking from fascism this celebration of their Italianness. Most Italian Americans are not fascists, they are probably not aware of, or don't understand the political intricacies of fascism in Italy.

Narrator

In Pope's pape Italian Americans would have read little of the growing accounts of fascism's dark side. Mussolini believed in political violen means to power, and accounts of torture and assassinations at the hands of his Squadristi were rampant in Italy. In 1935, when he invaded Ethiopia with a devastating force of planes, tanks and poison mustard gas, shock and rebuke rippled through the international community. When President Roosevelt threatened to intervene, Pope doubled down on his Italian ally. Pope attention when he gathered 20,000 Italian Americans at Madison Square Garden for a fundraising rally in support of Mussolini's invasion.

Vellon

Pope knows Franklin Roosevelt was concerned about keeping the Italian American vote. That vote was really emerging as a powerful force. He begins to harness this kind of critical mass. And this is what, really, Pope capitalizes on.

Pernicone

The implication being if you don't help, all I have to do is come out with an editorial saying don't vote for Roosevelt next time. So, forget about it. Roosevelt stays out. There was nobody in the Italian community who could swing Italian votes towards the Democrats the way he could.

whizzing and exploding

Narrator

But, no matter the amount of ink spilled, Pope's papers couldn't stop the tide of history. On December 7, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States was at war. With Mussolini aligned with Hitler's Germany and Tojo's Japan, the fascism Pope had promoted was now the ideology of the enemy.

Vellon

Pope really is in an untenable situation. He can no longer promote Mussolini on the pages of "Il Progresso" and many of his friends and political connections tried to help him run for cover.

Pernicone

Pope and Roosevelt have a pow-wow in Washington. Roosevelt says, "Gene." He used to call him Gene. "You'd better clean up your act."

Narrator

Glowing accounts of Mu but disappeared from "Il Progresso" and Pope's powerful connections insulated him from accusations But for the wider who'd flirted with fascism, this would be a

Vellon

For Italian Americans, it's going to be a difficult situation. There are some Americans that are concerned that they may choose to be loyal to Mussolini rather than the United States.

Distasi

I really don't think that there was an actual fascist threat in the United States. But, their support for fascism would come back to haunt them because it would be used as evidence of disloyalty.

Narrator

With the country at war, Italian American Overnight, images of Mussolini were torn down in Little Italy's throughout the country. Streets and storefronts were strewn with banners and flags supporting the troops.

Vellon

Once it becomes clear that Mussolini is at war with their host country, it is not a question of, "I want to be Italian" or, "I want to be American." We are Americans.

Narrator

Italian Americans did what they could to help. Rosie Bonavita, a 21 year old Italian American from Peekskill, New York, was dubbed "Rosie the Riveter" and became the icon of the women's war effort. Even Chef Boyardee chipped in. During the war, Italian immigrant Ettore Boiardi turned his canned spaghetti factory into the largest supplier of rations for the US troops.

Boiardi

They worked seven days a week. They worked 24 hours a day. They made the spaghetti, the meatballs, the sauces, and all that sort of thing. Anything that you could think of that the GI's would like, they made.

Narrator

Sicilian born filmmaker Frank Capra was one of Hollywood's most successful directors when he was enlisted to make a series of films for the government called "Why We Fight."

Movie Announcer

Fighting, living for freedom that for which men have fought since time began.

Narrator

Seen by 54 million Americans, Capra's films were an homage to America's most noble ideals about freedom and liberty. And Italian American families

Gabaccia

If I just think about my own father who was one of those kids who decided he wanted to be a hyper-American, World War II gave him a chance to prove his national loyalties to the United States. And in fact, his brother was a Marine, his oldest brother was in the Army, and he was in the Navy.

Scalia

Two of my mother's brothers, Vincent and Anthony fought in Europe. I don't think they regarded themselves they regarded themselves as Italian Americans. If there was going to be a War between Italy and, uh, the United States, no doubt what side they'd be on.

D'Antonio

Certainly there was a feeling that we were all finally showing our strong faith in American society. That we were serving as well as anybody else in the military. And that we were finally breaking through whatever doubts there were about who we were as Americans.

gunfire and explosions

Narrator

and Iwo Jima in the Pacific, to the Battle of the Bulge and Normandy in Europe, Italian Americans fought in some of the war's most legendary battles.

Turturro

My father enlisted in the Navy. He was in D-Day. And he was, he was sunk on Destroyer. He was a very, very patriotic person.

Sparacio

We were all for America. We didn't want to see this country being taken over. But I was fortunate that I was sent to the Pacific. I didn't have to be fightin' the Italians.

Narrator

Private Alberto Onesti wasn't so fortunate. In May of 1943, he was in basic training in South Carolina when he was called into the office by his superiors.

Onesti

I go in there and they said to me, "Private, I got one question to ask you." I said, "Yes, sir?" He said, "I want to know if we sent you to Italy, would you have any objections of killing Italian soldiers?" I said, "Absolutely not." I said, "He's wearing a different uniform than mine, I don't care if he's Italian, Polish, German, I'm going to kill him." "That's all we wanted to know." And they sent me to Italy. You know what, my emotions changed when I went there.

Narrator

While serving in Italy, Onesti tracked down his ancestral home. Walking over the war-ravaged hills of Salerno, he came across a local villager.

Onesti

I encounter this man and he told me in Italian, "Where are you going?" "I am going to Olveto," he said, "that's where I'm going!" He says, "Who are you?" I said, "Albert Onesti." When he heard my name, he went crazy. He says, "We talk about you all the time!" He says, "Oh are they going to be happy to see you!" The whole town came out. They gave me such a welcome. I can't ever believe it. Unbelievable, like a hero walked in. I met my aunts, my cousins. I still was against Mussolini and the fascists. But I had a whole family out there.

Narrator

Back at home, Italian Americans were forced to deal with the reality of being at war with their native Italy.

Carnevale

Italians understood it was not a good thing to be identifying in a public way with being Italian. So there were signs in storefronts in Little Italy's across the country, "No Italian spoken for the duration of the war." Those were not being put up because there was any kind of mandate to do that. It would be the shopkeepers themselves who decided to put those signs in the windows.

Donna Gabaccia

World War II is tough. Yeah you can still be Italian at home. Maybe the Italian family is something you can hang onto, but that's all. Especially for children, it's hard to maintain a positive Italianness during WWII.

Narrator

Writer Gay Talese was just 10 years old when war broke out. His parents ran a small tailoring shop in Ocean City, New Jersey, a town with only a handful of Italian American families.

Gay Talese

There was a sense of embarrassment, or impending embarrassment, that I carried with me. I mean, Italy was in the news almost every week. And so I would go with schoolmates to the movie theater, and I'd see Italy.

Movie Announcer

Federico declares war against America, saying it is a privilege to aid heroic Japan.

Gay Talese

When you see the grotesque pictures of Mussolini in the public post office of your small town, this fat guy with a jowl and a ridiculous hat, representing one of the enemy along with Tojo from Japan and of course Hitler from Nazi Germany. You don't want to be a part of that.

Movie Announcer

In Sicily, 400,000 Axis troops, principally Italian, oppose the Allies.

Gay Talese

Then you'd see these dusty old be-draggled Italian soldiers and I'd think, "I'm going to see my uncles sooner or later." Because you see, on the bureau of my father's bedroom were photographs of his brothers, younger brothers, who were in the Italian Army during World War II. My fathers' brothers were the enemy of the United States government. And I think my father felt as on trial during that time and he had to behave himself, and he did.

Narrator

In their tailoring shop, his parents remained guarded when customers brought up the subject of war.

Gay Talese

Both of my parents were very careful what they said in public in their store during the daytime. What I noticed, however, once the store was closed, their mentality was altered. One of the first things my father would do was turn on the radio. He had a shortwave radio that picked up foreign news. Every day there was an advancement somewhere in Italy; and every day, a new town was being penetrated, and new casualties were reported. He would then reveal his concerns about his native country, as he would not during the daytime in the presence of anyone in the store. When he was alone upstairs in the apartment, he was on the verge of depression much of the time. Prayed every day.

Narrator

One morning in 1944, Gay's father awoke to news that a massive US air raid had destroyed a 13th century monastery in his native southern Italy. Gay was so shocking, unnecessary he believed, and he was in an uncharacteristic mood of madness as he read this story. During the war, I used to build model airplanes. Replicas of current military aircraft. And my father knew that I had my bedroom ceiling arrayed with these planes strung with his thread. And he came in. And he started, like, like King Kong, swatting away at these airplanes, and he started destroying. I'm screaming. I had my little school bag, I was about to go to school. "They're mine." "Get away from there." "What are you doing?" "They're my property." "No they're not." He's, he just destroyed the whole thing. I was, I broke down in tears. It didn't stop him, he was in a rage. He was insane. He wrecked what I had and I hated him for it. We all had a lot of hate in those days.

typewriter keys click

Narrator

Narrat beginning of World War II, despite their outward expressions of patriotism, Italian Americans increasingly came under suspicion by the federal government. Backgrounds were scrutinized; secret dossiers were opened, as scores of Italians were now reclassified as enemies of the state.

Distasi

The Enemy Alien story begins with the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. One day later, the President issued executive order 2527.

Narrator

President Roosevelt's Executive Order declared that all Italians who had not yet become American citizens were to be treated as enemy aliens. All were required to register and carry new pink ID cards.

Distasi

With that proclamation, 600,000 Italian immigrants had immediately lost all of their constitutional rights. The FBI fanned out throughout the country and started picking up enemy aliens who were on the custodial detention list. This was a list that J. Edgar Hoover had been preparing since 1936. Of all enemy aliens who were considered to be suspect in one way or another. They would knock on the door. "By order of the President you're ordered to go with me."

Narrator

Even those not on Hoover's list found themselves targets of the government's unfolding war plans.

Every day there was news of further restrictions

limits on travel, strict curfews and threats of deportation.

Dunn

It was absolute chaos in terms of how these prohibitions were being received in the community. One day it was only Japanese, the next day it was Germans, the next day it was Italians, the next day it was all three. They were threatened by their own government. Their sons were off fighting at war, and they didn't know if they were going to be safe at home.

Narrator

In San Francisco, the popular Italian American mayor, Angelo Rossi, would experience just how deeply these wartime suspicions ran. With his West Coast city seen as vulnerable to enemy attack, the third-term mayor was working diligently to galvanize his citizens for the war effort.

Rose Marie Cleese

The city is mobilizing. My grandfather is working hard to, you know; get people to, to get into the war mode of saving their bacon grease, and growing victory gardens, and joining neighborhood civil defense things. He was very busy as mayor of a city that was critical to the war effort. And then when these internments and persecutions start, I don't think he saw what was coming at all. I think he was totally broadsided.

Narrator

In 1942, to testify before a joint fact-finding committee on un-American activities set up to investigate the alleged fascist influence on the West Coast.

Rose Marie Cleese

They're accusing him of giving the fascist salute and having had a picture of Mussolini in his office. He was, I think, pretty shocked that his patriotism was being questioned. And he even referred to his mother when he was a little boy of what she taught him about what it was to be an American. He's so emotional. I mean he couldn't believe that he was having these accusations thrown at him from anonymous sources. day the headlines were, "Rossi Accused." And it just opened the door for people to wonder. And he was as far from a fascist that you could ever imagine. I mean he was part of that first generation that really wanted to assimilate. He wanted to be more of a San Franciscan or a Californian than a quintessential Italian.

Distasi

They went after the sitting mayor of S who was born in the United States, who was not an enemy alien, and they made him look like a traitor to his country. His career was over from that moment on. I believe Italian-Americans on the West Coast felt that they were more accepted and so when these restrictions came it was, it was a pretty bitter blow.

Cantarutti

It was a shock. We didn't expect it, boom. "Dear Mr. and Mrs. Cantarutti, you are hereby notified." If you knew my father, he was the sweetest man in the world. There's no way he could be an enemy of anybody. But we were so identified, and asked to, uh, not asked, we were told to get out of here. I was just a little kid, I was 6, 7 years old, the only thing I remember is, "Oh my god, we have to pack up and leave." It was like, but I remember, frantic. "We've gotta get out of here." "Really?" "Yeah, we gotta get out of here now."

Narrator

In California, an estimated 10,000 Italians were forced to evacuate their homes. The government decreed that no enemy alien could remain west of Highway 1.

Dunn

My great-grandmother who's living with one of my great aunts in this little ramshackle house, hears a knock on the door, and it's these two men, and they're telling her she has to move now. Evidently, notices have gone up, she hadn't paid attention to the notices, and she was being told that she had to move immediately. She doesn't speak English, she's lived in this same spot for 40 years, she's got three generations of her family living in the neighborhood, and she's targeted as being an enemy of her adopted country.

Distasi

"Enemy alien" seems like a fearsome term. The ironic thing is that many, many of them were elderly, people who had come to the United States as grown men and women, and were intimidated by the citizenship process, what they had to know and answer to. One man from the town of Pittsburgh was 97 years old. There was a deep sense of hur They had chosen this country. So, to be targeted in this way, was really traumatic for a lot of them.

Narrator

On Columbus Day, October 12, 1942, after intense lobbying, the government reversed its position. Italian Americans would no longer be classified as enemy aliens.

Francis Biddle

You Italians have met the test. Your loyalty to this country has been proved. You should now see to it that no American Italian shall ever be again considered disloyal to the United States of America.

Narrator

Ultimately, 600,000 Italian Americans were branded enemy aliens, 1,200 were detained, and nearly 400 were kept in internment camps. Perhaps overshadowed by the far more severe treatment of Japanese-Americans during the war, the story of the Italian American detentions and internments was largely forgotten by history. And Italians themselves rarely spoke of it.

Distasi

There was a real shame that was elicited by all this. It was a deep wound. And I think that wound was carried through for many, many years by the, uh, Italian community as a whole.

Dunn

I spent a lot of time with my great-grandmother. She helped raise me along with my grandmother, and there were moments, when she was in her 90s, she would break into this melancholy about "la mala note" and she would weep about "la mala note," the night that they had come for her. And I had no idea what she was talking about. This is what happened to her, this is what happened to my family.

Narrator

In 1945, World War II ended, and Italian American soldiers came home. 1.5 million had fought for their country. Side by side with their fellow American soldiers, they shared in a hero's welcome. The war had taken this younger generation out of their tight-knit Italian neighborhoods as they fought with

Turturro

My father had met people from all over America, all these guys on the ship from down south. Perkins and Pickens, they was two guys who were friends of his. That was a great experience for him. They used to all keep in touch, write letters, because they were on the boat.

Guglielmo

These platoons were the "White melting pots." A place where those boundaries could blur. Their lives depended on comradeship with their fellow soldiers, so these ethnic and religious boundaries that seemed to make so much of a difference back on the home front were less so coming out of the war.

Narrator

Italians had been a part of a triumphant national endeavor, and it had emboldened their sense of Americanness.

Trigiani

There was such a sense of that Italian and American all-coming together at once. This victory, they felt it was theirs. It shaped them. It was like, okay, we're investing in this country. We're part of it. We're giving up our lives. The immigrant now had become the backbone of the country.

Hamill

The war was a dividing line. By then, notions about Italian loyalty and all that were all over. They could count the names on the graves and the congressional medal winners whose names ended in vowels and say if they're not American, who the hell is?

Announcer

Next time. From movie screens to Billboard charts, Italian Americans make their mark.

Man

Sinatra had enormous power, politically and in Hollywood.

Announcer

They move beyond the mafia stigma.

Turturro

My family was so unlike that and my father looked down upon that stuff.

Announcer

And take their place in the American mainstream.

Mario Cuomo

From their little grocery store to the highest seat, in the greatest state, in the only world we know.

Announcer

On the next "Italian Americans." To learn more about Italian-American culture and history from the late 19th century to today visit PBS.org/TheItalianAmericans. Or visit us on Twitter at #italiansPBS. "The Italian-Americans" is available on DVD; a companion book is also available. To order, visit shopPBS.org or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS. Also available for download on iTunes.