"No Italian spoken for the duration of the war": Language, Italian-American identity, and cultural pluralism in the World War II years

Journal of American Ethnic History

Volumn 22, Issue 3, 2003, Pages 3-33

  Carnevale, Nancy C ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 33645775871     PISSN: 02785927     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (130)

1. Garry Boulard, "Just a Gigolo": The Life and Times of Louis Prima (Lafayette, La.: Center for Louisiana Studies, University of Southwestern Louisiana, 1989), 72
2. Jack Zero, "For Mari-Yootch (I Walka da Pooch)," The Very Best of Louis Prima, Louis Prima, Pair Records Portraits, PDC-2-1354
3. For the most part, Italian Americans have remained silent on the subject of Italian-American treatment during the war and its effects. Recently, there has been evidence of a new interest in the topic spurred in part by a traveling exhibition organized by the American Italian Historical Association's Western Regional Chapter entitled "La Storia Segreta: When Italian Americans were Enemy Aliens" that began touring the U.S. in 1995. The title of the exhibition, which means both "the secret story" and "the secret history," suggests the unwillingness of Italian Americans to revisit this period as well as popular ignorance of this episode in American history. A subsequent exhibition, "Prisoners in Our Own Home: The Italian American Experience as America's Enemy Aliens," developed by the Italian American Museum, focuses on New York City's Italian-American population. Perhaps the most decisive evidence of a new willingness on the part of at least some Italian Americans to reconsider this moment in their history is a law enacted in 2000 at the urging of several Italian-American organizations and politicians that seeks formal acknowledgment by the U.S. government of its treatment of Italians during the war years. As part of the law, the Justice Department recently issued a report documenting arrests, internments, raids on homes, seizure of property, and other restrictions placed on Italian Americans. U.S. Department of Justice, Report to the Congress of the United States: A Review of the Restrictions on Persons of Italian Ancestry During World War II (November 2001)
4. A few historians have approached the subject of language directly through a consideration of language maintenance or literacy as they relate to ethnic identity. See for example, David Gerber, "Language Maintenance, Ethnic Group Formation, and Public Schools: Changing Patterns of German Concern, Buffalo, 1837-1874," in Ethnicity, Ethnic Identity, and Language Maintenance, vol. 16, American Immigration and Ethnicity, ed. George E. Pozzetta (New York: Garland Publishing, 1991)
5. "'You see I speak Very Well Englisch': Literacy and the Transformed Self as Reflected in Immigrant Personal Correspondence." Journal of American Ethnic History, v. 12, n. 2 (1993): 56-62
6. Jonathan Zimmerman, "Ethnics Against Ethnicity: European Immigrants and Foreign Language Instruction, 1890-1940," Journal of American History, v. 88 n. 4 (March 2002): 1383-1404
7. On the general absence of attention to language in studies of immigrants, see Donna Gabbacia, From the Other Side: Women, Gender and Immigrant Life in the U.S., 1820-1990 (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana UP, 1994), 182
8. The linguist Hermann Haller makes a similar observation specifically with regard to studies of Italian Americans. Hermann Haller, "Italian in New York," in The Multilingual Apple: Languages in New York City, eds. Ofelia Garcia and Joshua Fishman, Contributions to the Sociology of Language 77 (Mouton de Gruyter, 1997), 125
9. Werner Sollors has drawn particular attention to the subject of immigrant languages in the New World. See Werner Sollors, "The Blind Spot of Multiculturalism: America's Invisible Literature," The Chronicle of Higher Education, 30 October 1998: B4-B5
10. Werner Sollors, ed., Multilingual America: Transnationalism, Ethnicity, and the Languages of American Literature (New York: New York UP, 1998)
11. Marc Shell and Werner Sollors, eds., The Multilingual Anthology of American Literature (New York and London: New York University Press, 2000)
12. See also Orm Overland, ed. Not English Only: Redefining "American" in American Studies (Amsterdam: UV University Press, 2001)
13. Two recent studies of Native Americans consider the use of other languages in America: Ruth Spack, America's Second Tongue: American Indian Education and the Ownership of English, 1860-1900 (Lincoln; London: University of Nebraska Press, 2002)
14. Edward G. Gray, New Babel: Languages and Nations in Early America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999)
15. There are several historical treatments of language in Multilingual America that suggest the many ways that historians can approach the study of immigrant languages. See Peter Conolly-Smith, " 'Ersatz-Drama' and Ethnic (Self) Parody: Adolf Philipp and the Decline of New York's German-Language Stage, 1893-1918"
16. Matthew Frye Jacobson, "'The Quintessence of the Jew'": Polemics of Nationalism and Peoplehood in Turn-of-the-Century Yiddish Fiction"
17. Mario Maffi, "The Strange Case of Luigi Donato Ventura's Peppino: Some Speculations on the Beginnings of Italian-American Fiction"
18. Anna Maria Martellone, "The Formation of an Italian-American Identity through Popular Theater"
19. Karen Majewski, "Crossings and Double-Crossings: Polish-Language Immigrant Narratives of the Great Migration."
20. Gary Gerstle, "Interpreting the 'American Way': The Working Class Goes to War," in The War in American Culture, eds. Lewis A. Erenberg and Susan E. Hirsch (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 114
21. See also Gerstle's Working-Class Americanism: The Politics of Labor in a Textile City, 1914-1960 (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989): 289-290
22. Gerstle, "Interpreting," 105-127
23. Philip Gleason, Speaking of Diversity: Language and Ethnicity in Twentieth Century America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992): Ch. 6
24. In his study of the intercultural education movement, Montalto argues that the desire for unity was the product of national fears of interethnic conflict during the war. Nicholas Montalto, A History of the Intercultural Education Movement (New York: Garland, 1982)
25. For a review of the literature on assimilation, see Russell A. Kazal, "Revisiting Assimilation: The Rise, Fall, and Reappraisal of a Concept in American Ethnic History," American Historical Review (April 1995): 437-471
26. "Il Sandaco La Guardia ha Proclamato il 17 Maggio 'I am an American Day,'" Il Progresso Italo-Americano, 11 April 1942
27. Horace M. Kallen, Culture and Democracy in the United States, Introduction by Stephen J. Whitfield, Studies in Ethnicity, Ronald H. Bayor, Series Editor (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers: 1998)
28. Gary R. Mormino and George E. Pozzetta, "Ethnics at War: Italian Americans in California during World War II," in The Way We Really Were: The Golden State in the Second Great War, ed. Roger W. Lotchin (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000): 151-152
29. Richard Steele describes the mood of the war years as one of tolerance rather than true cultural pluralism. Richard W. Steele, "The War on Intolerance: The Reformulation of American Nationalism, 1939-1941," Journal of American Ethnic History (Fall 1989): 9-35
30. Reed Ueda, "The Changing Path to Citizenship: Ethnicity and Naturalization during World War II," in The War in American Culture, ed., Lewis A. Erenberg and Susan E. Hirsch (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 203
31. Gerstle, "Interpreting," 114
32. The issue of how immigrants/ethnics construct an ethnic identity continues to be debated and refined. The current understanding of ethnic identity emphasizes the socially constructed nature of ethnicity. See for example, Werner Sollors, Beyond Ethnicity: Consent and Descent in American Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986)
33. Mary C. Waters, Ethnic Options: Choosing Identities in America (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1990)
34. Others have qualified this view by stressing that choices are not made in a vacuum but always occur within concrete historical limitations. See Kathleen Neils Conzen, David A. Gerber, Ewa Morawska, George E. Pozzetta, and Rudolph J. Vecoli, "The Invention of Ethnicity," Journal of American Ethnic History 12 (1992), 3-41
35. Gary Gerstie, "Liberty, Coercion, and the Making of Americans," Journal of American History 84,2 (September 1997): 524-558
36. Although I use language in the singular, I recognize that Italian immigrants and ethnics spoke a wide variety of mainly southern Italian dialects often incorporating English or Italianized English. On the languages of Italian Americans, see Hermann Haller, "Italians," in The Multilingual Apple: Languages in New York City, ed. Ofelia Garcia, Joshua A. Fishman (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1997)
37. Hermann Haller, "Between Standard Italian and Creole: An Interim Report on Language Patterns in an Italian-American Community," Word, 32:3 (December 1981): 181-191
38. Michael LaSorte, La Merica Images of Italian Greenhorn Experience (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1985), Ch. 7
39. Stephen Fox, The Unknown Internment: An Oral History of the Relocation of Italian Americans during World War II. (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990), 184-185
40. Gloria Ricci Lothrop, "The Untold Story: The Effect of the Second World War on California Italians," Journal of the West 35,1 (1996): 9
41. Mormino and Pozzetta, "Ethnics at War," 144
42. George E. Pozzetta, "Alien Enemies or Loyal Americans? The Internment of Italian-Americans," in Alien Justice: Wartime Internment in Australia and North America, ed. Kay Saunders and Roger Daniels (St. Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press, 2000): 80-92
43. For other discussions of the difficulties the war years created for Italian Americans, see Lawrence DiStasi, "How World War II Iced Italian American Culture," in MultiAmerica: Essays on Cultural Wars and Cultural Peace, ed. Ishmael Reed (New York: Viking Press, 1997), 169-178
44. Stefano Luconi, From Paesani to White Ethnics: The Italian Experience in Philadelphia (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 2001), Ch. 5
45. Some have pointedly refuted the notion that Italian Americans faced any backlash during the war. See Gleason, Speaking of Diversity, 164
46. Philip A. Bean, "Fascism and Italian-American Identity. A Case Study: Utica, New York," Journal of Ethnic Studies, 17,2 (Summer 1989): 101-119; 111
47. Notice to Aliens of Enemy Nationalities, Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) Central Office, E. Johnson 1940-1943, Forms used for Registering Aliens, Record Group (RG) 85, National Archives II (NA), Washington, D.C
48. For an overview of Japanese Americans and other ethnic/racial groups during the war, see Ronald Takaki, Double Victory: A Multicultural History of America in World War II (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2000)
49. United States Department of Justice, Regulations Controlling Travel and other Conduct of Aliens of Enemy Nationalities, Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1942
50. James E. Miller, "A Question of Loyalty: American Liberals, Propaganda, and the Italian American Community, 1939-1943," The Maryland Historian 9 (1978): 60
51. Ronald H. Bayor, Neighbors in Conflict: The Irish, Germans, Jews, and Italians of New York City, 1929-1941 (Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), 120
52. Lonthrop, "Untold Story," 12
53. Luconi, From Paesani to White Ethnics, 99-101
54. For a contemporary perspective on the devaluation of all things Italian during the war years, see Leonard Covello, "Italo-American Youth in War Crisis," 28 March 1943, Leonard Covello Papers (CP), Box 15, Folder 3, Batch Institute For Ethnic Studies, Philadelphia
55. Luciano J. Iorizzo and Salvatore Mondello, The Italian-Americans (New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1971), 208
56. Gay Talese, Unto the Sons (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1992), 5, 50-51
57. Diane diPrima, Recollections of My Life as a Woman: The New York Years, (New York: Viking Press, 2001), 20-21; 40
58. Nancy C. Carnevale, "Living in Translation: Italian Immigrants and Language in the U.S., 1890-1945 (Ph.d. diss., Rutgers University, 2000. Ann Arbor: UMI, 2000), Ch. 1
59. Martin Dies, The Trojan Horse in America. (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1940), 346
60. Constantine Panunzio. "Italian Americans, Fascism, and the War," Yale Review (Summer 1942): 771. "Inability of Foreign-Born in New York State to speak English in relationship to Illiteracy." U.S. Census 1930, CP, Balch Institute, Box 121, Folder 11. "Inability to Speak English, of the Foreign Born White Population in the United States 10 years old and over. By Country of Birth, 1930," CP, Box 97, Folder 11
61. Alaska, Italian Activities in, Nov. 6, 1942, Army Intelligence Decimal File (AIDF), 1941-1948, FROM: 291.2 Germans TO: 291.2 Italians, RG 319, NA
62. LMC General Italian Intelligence Survey in the Buffalo Field Division, Sept. 23, 1943, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) File No. 65-1338, AIDF 1941-1948, FROM: 219.2 Germans TO: 291.2 Italians, RG 319, NA
63. LTJ General Intelligence Survey in Houston Field Division, Aug. II, 1942, FBI File No. 65-130, AIDF 1941-1948, FROM: 291.2 Italians TO: 291.2 Japanese, RG 319, NA; General Italian Intelligence Survey Louisville Division, May 11, 1942, FBI File No. 65-522, AIDF 1941-1948, FROM: 291.2 Italians TO: 291.2 Japanese, RG 319, NA; General Italian Intelligence Survey in the Little Rock Field Division, May 15, 1942, FBI, AIDF 1941-1948, FROM: 291.2 Italians TO: 291.2 Japanese RG 319, NA
64. General Italian Intelligence Survey in Oklahoma City Field Division, Oct. 13, 1942, FBI File No. 65-585, AIDF 1941-1948, FROM: 291.2 Italians TO: 291.2 Japanese, RG 319, NA
65. Questions and Answers on Regulations Concerning Aliens of Enemy Nationalities, Forms Used for Registering Aliens, U.S. Department of Justice, INS Central Office, E. Johnson 1940-1943, RG 85, NA
66. General Italian Intelligence Survey in the San Antonio Field Division, Dec. 22, 1942, FBI File No. 100-271, AIDF 1941-1948, FROM: 291.2 Germans TO: 291.2 Italians, RG 319, NA
67. General Italian Intelligence Survey in the San Antonio Field Division, Apr. 8, 1943, FBI File No. 100-271, AIDF 1941-1948, FROM: 291.2 Germans TO: 291.2 Italians, RG 319, NA
68. "Italy is Speechless: Movies Lose Their Voices," The New York Times, 16 September 1998
69. Bayor, Neighbors, 120
70. For more on Pope and Italian-American fascism, see Philip V. Cannistraro and Elena Aga Rossi, "La Politica Etnica e il Dilemma dell'Antifascismo Italiano negli Stati Uniti: Il Caso di Generoso Pope," Storia Contemporanea 17, 2 (1986): 217-243
71. Stefano Luconi, "Generoso Pope and Italian American Voters in New York City," Studi Emigrazione 38,142 (2001): 399-422
72. Luigi Antonini, Italian American Labor Council, to Alan Cranston, Chief, Foreign Language Division, Apr. 8, 1942, Office of Facts and Figures, Office of War Information (OWI), RG 208, NA
73. John P. Diggins, Mussolini and Fascism: The View from America (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1972
74. Gloria Ricci Lothrop, "A Shadow on the Land: The Impact of Fascism on Los Angeles Italians," California History 74,4 (Winter 1996/1997): 338-353
75. Vincent M. Lombardi, "Italian American Workers and the Response to Fascism," in Pane e Lavoro, ed. George E. Pozzetta (Toronto: Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1980), 141-157
76. Panunzio, "Italian Americans."
77. Italian-American Publications Defend their Earlier Faith in Fascism, July 27, 1945, Security-Classified Intelligence Reference Publications (AP@ File), 1940-1945, Office of Strategic Services, Foreign Nationalities Branch News Notes, No. N-415, RG 165, NA
78. Milton Bracker, "Italian Remains Greek to Yanks," The New York Times, 13 November 1944
79. "Topics of the Times," editorial, The New York Times, 7 November 1944
80. DiStasi, "How World War II," 172
81. Alan Cranston to Anthony Fiore, Nov. 6, 1942, OWI, Record Group 208
82. Gerd Horten, "Unity on the Air?: Fifth Columnists and Foreign Language Broadcasting in the U.S. During World War II," Ethnic Forum 13,1 (1993): 13-14
83. Miller, "A Question," 54
84. General Italian Intelligence Survey in the Washington Field Division, Dec. 26, 1941, FBI File No. 65-2090. AIDF 1941-1948 FROM: 291.2 Italians TO: 291.2 Japanese, RG 319, NA
85. Horten, "Unity," 14-15, 24-25
86. Most Italian language broadcasting - up to 70 percent - consisted of musical features such as operatic arias and folk songs. Humbert Nelli, From Immigrants to Ethnics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 126
87. Horten, "Unity," 14-18
88. Miller, "A Question," 57
89. Alan Cranston to Luigi Antonini, Mar. 12, 1942, NC-138, Records of the OWI, RG 208
90. General Italian Intelligence Survey in Saint Louis Division," FBI, July 1, 1943, ADF 1941-1948, FROM: 291.2 Italians TO: 201.2 Japanese, RG 319, NA
91. Alan Cranston to Editor of Il Crociato, Brooklyn, N.Y. September 22, 1942, NC-1138, Records of OWI, RG 208, NA
92. Lorraine M. Lees, "National Security and Ethnicity: Contrasting Views during World War II," Diplomatic History 11,2 (1987): 113-125
93. Speech to be delivered by Alan Cranston, Office of Facts and Figures, on Tuesday, June 2, 1942-OWI, RG 208
94. Paolino Gerli to Alan Cranston, June 18, 1942, OWI, RG 208
95. Max Corvo, "The OSS and the Italian Campaign," The Secrets War: The Office of Strategic Services in World War II, ed. George C. Chalou (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1992), 183-193
96. Emilio T. Caruso, "Italian-American Operational Groups of the Office of Strategic Services," Gli Americani e la guerra di liberazione in Italia, Atti del Convegno internazionale di Sudi Storici, Venezia, 17-18 ottobre 1994 (Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, Dipartimento per l'informazione e l'editoria): 218-224
97. Caruso, "Italian-American," 218
98. Corvo, "OSS," 219
99. "Operations," 13, NA, RG 226, E99, Box 45, Folder 6, File "Caserta OG-OP-5."
100. Report of the Sardinia Operation," 26, NA, RG 226, E99, Box 45, Folder 6
101. Conticelli Interview, 1975, p. 212, Oral Histories #7, Records of the International Ladies Garment Worker's Union (ILGWU), 5780/110, Box 4, Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives, Martin P. Catherwood Library, Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations
102. James M. Mead, letter to Luigi Antonini, 23 April 1942, Antonini Papers, Records of the ILGWU, 5780/023, Box 1, Folder 6, Kheel Center
103. "Italo-American Youth in War Crisis" speech to United Nationalities Council, March 28, 1943, CP, Balch Institute, Box 15, Folder 3
104. Letter to Lido Belli, September 21, 1943, CP, Box 15, Folder 10
105. Boulard, Just a Gigolo, 74
106. RKO, Boston, May 11. Louis Prima Orch, The Barretts, The Pitchmen, Jack Powers, Lily Ann Carol; Swing Parade 1946 (RKO) Variety, May 15, 1946
107. "My Cucuzza," Louis Prima his Greatest Hits, Louis Prima, Jasmine Records, JASCD 327
108. Letter to the editor from Jack Furniss, Jr., Life Magazine, September 10, 1945
109. Richard Hayes, Jr., et al., letter, Life Magazine, 10 September 1945
110. Gary Boulard, "Blacks, Italians, and the Making of New Orleans Jazz," Journal of Ethnic Studies 16,1 (Spring 1988): 53-66
111. Boulard, "Blacks, Italians, and the Making of New Orleans Jazz," 61
112. This information is based on the Boulard book and article previously cited. For more on the role of Italian Americans in the creation of jazz, see Julia Volpelletto Nakamura. "The Italian American Contribution to Jazz." Italian Americans Celebrate Life, The Arts and Popular Culture. Selected Essays from the 22nd Annual Conference of the American Italian Historical Association. (Staten Island: American Italian Historical Association, 1990), 141-151
113. On the "in-between" racial status occupied by Italian Americans and other "new immigrants" in the era of mass migration and beyond. See, for example, James R. Barrett and David R. Roediger, "Inbetween Peoples: Race, Nationality, and the 'New Immigrant' Working Class," Journal of American Ethnic History 16 (Spring 1997): 3-44
114. Matthew Frye Jacobson Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race (Boston: Harvard University Press, 1998)
115. Robert Orsi, "The Religious Boundaries of an Inbetween People: Street Feste and the Problem of the Dark-Skinned Other in Italian Harlem 1920-1990," American Quarterly 44,3 (September 1992): 313-347
116. David A. J. Richards, Italian American: The Racializing of an Ethnic Identity (New York: New York University Press, 1999)
117. John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 3rd edition (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1992), 156, 172-173
118. Gary Gerstle, American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000)
119. "New Band Hit," Life Magazine, 20 August, 1945
120. Rosemary Clooney, with Raymond Strait, This for Remembrance: The Autobiography of Rosemary Clooney, an Irish-American Singer (Chicago: Playboy Press, 1977), 131
121. Clooney, This for Remembrance, 141 ("Mambo Italiano" is not cited in her autobiography)
122. In his survey of popular music in America, Charles Hamm notes the increasing popularity of humorous novelty songs in the 1950s without providing any context for understanding why. He cites "Come on-a My House" as an example. Charles Hamm, Yesterdays: Popular Song in America (New York: Norton, 1979), 388-389
123. Richard D. Alba, Italian Americans: Into the Twilight of Ethnicity (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1985), 77
124. Gary R. Mormino and George E. Pozzetta, The Immigrant World of Ybor City: Italians and their Latin Neighbors in Tampa, 1885-1985 (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1987): Ch. 10
125. In his recent study of Philadelphia's post-war Italian-American community, Luconi discounts the notion that suburbanization dampened ethnic identification. Luconi, From Paesani to White Ethnics, 139
126. Joshua Fishman, V. Nahirny, J. Hoffman, and R. Hayden, Language Loyalty in the United States (The Hague: Mouton, 1966)
127. Alejandro Portes and Ruben G. Rumbaut, Immigrant America: A Portrait (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990): Ch. 6
128. Richard D. Alba, The Transformation of Ethnic Identity in White America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990); 93-101
129. James Crispino, The Assimilation of Ethnic Groups: The Italian Case (Staten Island: Center for Migration Studies, 1980)
130. Alba, Italian Americans, 77