F I R S TP R E V893NEXTLAST

War Casts a Shadow on the Waterfront
During the early 1940s, San Francisco's Italian community was rocked by the actions of Mussolini's fascist government. Their homeland was now at war with the United States and rumors of enemy submarines off the coast landing saboteurs fed the public's fears. San Francisco's two Italian-language papers, the liberal, Il Corriere del Popolo and the conservative, L'Italia reported growing anti-Italian sentiment.

In January of 1942, U.S. Attorney General Francis Biddle issued a sweeping order that all enemy aliens were to be removed from the waterfront district. The order specifically named San Francisco's Italian Fisherman's Wharf and stated that no non-citizens would be permitted to work, live, or visit there. This order effectively banned 2,000 fisherman from their boats. The Italians now feared the relocation and the property confiscation that had happened to the country's Japanese.

Soon prominent Italian-Americans were working behind the scenes with government officials pushing for the order to be changed. These groups met with General DeWitt of the Western Defense Command and Attorney General Earl Warren. Nine months later on November 5th, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox changed the status of non-citizen Italians from 'enemy aliens' to 'aliens' allowing them to return to sea provided either the fishing boat's captain or at least half the crew were American citizens.

Japanese-American citizens, lacking the same political clout, would languish in internment camps for another three years.
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