Exhibit eyes war injustices against Italian-Americans

Kimberley McGee

Friday, April 13, 2001 | 9:21 a.m.

Pride and prejudice led to a secret shame for Italian-Americans during the early days of World War II.

Italians were interned, discriminated against and curtailed in their movements at a time when their country was at war.

More than 50 years later it is no less painful for the families effected, but it is no longer a secret.

The furtive story of the more than 600,000 Italian immigrants who were labeled as enemy aliens during World War II is brought to life in the exhibit "Una Storia Segreta," through April 29 at the Las Vegas Art Museum.

Sponsored by the Augustus Society, a nonprofit Las Vegas organization of professional men and women of Italian-American descent, the 38-panel display offers the true-life stories of families taken from their homes, fired from their jobs and stripped of their valuables during World War II.

The U.S. government took precautions under the guise of national security. Homes were confiscated, as were automobiles and, finally, freedom from Italian-Americans who, although they lived in the United States, were born in Italy.

Within days of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, the FBI arrested 2,303 Californians of Japanese, German and Italian descent.

"I never knew any of this," Jim D'Onofrio, spokesperson for the Augustus Society, said. "As an Italian, and an American, how could this have happened and we don't know, (or) talk, about this?"

Hence the exhibit.

The American Italian Historical Association, which produced the display, unveiled its project at the Museo Italo Americano museum in San Francisco on Feb. 24, 1994. The display had crisscrossed the nation and opened in New York, Boston and Chicago, but had no plans to stop in Las Vegas -- until D'Onofrio learned of the exhibit last year.

"I thought it was important for our children to see this, to know it happened," D'Onofrio said. "That's why (admission is) free, too. We want people to recognize that this happened. It's history."

Gov. Kenny Guinn signed a proclamation March 15 recognizing the exhibit as an educational and historical tool. New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman and California Gov. Gray Davis also signed proclamations to that effect last year.

That is a step toward healing and recognizing what Italian-Americans endured on U.S. soil during World War II, said Rose Scudero, whose story is featured in the exhibit.

Military officials came for Scudero's mother, Rosa Viscuso, on Feb. 12, 1942.

According to protocol, because the 12-year-old Scudero was a minor, she was packed up and sent to a nonrestricted area away from their home in Pitts- burg, Calif., with her Italian-born parent. They left behind two grown brothers, three older sisters and a confused father, who had been born in the U.S.

About 1,400 Italians were removed from Pittsburg. More than 300 of those were deemed high-risk Italian-Americans, such as bank managers and radio personnel, and interned at camps as far away as Montana for the duration of the war.

"It was a kind of fear," Scudero, 71 and still living in Pitts- burg, said. "We didn't know where we were going, how long we would be gone, and if we'd ever come back. My mother used to cry herself to sleep every night."

The mother and daughter were interned less than 10 miles from their home, but far enough away not to be a threat to the town's steel mill, which produced weapons for the war.

With no car, strict curfews and no radio, the women were cut off from the small town of Pittsburg.

"We waited for the weekends for family to come visit," Scudero said. Her family endured loneliness, anger and ridicule, but with humble pride.

"My family knew that we were at war with Italy, and we knew they had to do something" for possible security reasons, Scudero said. "It was just the way they went about it that was hard."

Posters were placed on poles downtown that forbid the use of Italian, German and Japanese languages.

"That hurt," Scudero said. "My mother didn't speak English, and I had to talk Italian to her. We had to be hush-hush in public."

By October of 1942 most of the low-risk detainees, such as Scudero and her mother, were returned to their families. Some found their homes had been appropriated by the government and their businesses ruined by neglect or misuse, Scudero said.

"They felt ashamed," Scudero said. "There were several fellas that committed suicide because they couldn't handle it."

The Italian-Americans who were detained do not want an apology or monetary compensation, Scudero said.

"We just wanted it to be known," she said. "We are not trying to compare ourselves to the Japanese-Americans, who suffered so much. But emotionally it did effect us."