Italian American

I would like to comment on the article published in your magazine related to the Italian non-American citizens that lived in the USA during WW2, and their supposed mistreatment noted in your article. I am of Italian decent and my parents and all my relatives that were living in the USA during that time period were naturalized U.S. citizens before WW2. We as a family group did not experience any discrimination during that time period or after. Remember, Italy declared war on the US along with German and Japan, and some Italian “Black Shirts” loyal to Italy marched down Broadway in New York City at the beginning of the war in support of Mussolini. These were the Italians of questionable allegiance that were incarcerated, and rightly so.
 In 1942, the American government was offering enhancements to American citizens to move to California to work in the defense industry, my parents and family moved from the east coast to California in 1942 to gain full employment since the depression of 1929 was still affecting the economy. Both of my parent worked in the shipyards and munitions factory during the war without any issues. I was the youngest child in the family in the 2nd grade and did not experience any issues. However, the only downside to this event was that our parents would not speak Italian to us and we did not become proficient in the Italian language—which is understandable for the time period. To expect the American government to apologize to the Italians or the Japanese is not only ridiculous but moronic given the circumstances of the times.  In my opinion, if the non-citizen Italian didn’t like the security requirements of the country, they had the option to move back to Italy. I have no feelings of remorse for them or their families; they should have kissed the ground to have been in this country during that time period.