This article appears here courtesy of, and with permissions from San Jose Mercury News
Published Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2001, in the San Jose Mercury News
S.F. exhibit illustrates wartime threats to civil liberties
BY L.A. CHUNG
Mercury News Staff Columnist
For those who have been paying attention, President Bush is poised to sign
legislation that gives police broad powers to investigate suspected terrorists
and hold non-citizens indefinitely.
In which case you might want to pay a visit to 1684 Post St. in San Francisco.
There's a little exhibit whose subject matter is nearly 60 years old but
has stunning relevance to these times. There are, for example, some 700 people
being detained as part of the Sept. 11 attacks.
``The Enemy Alien Files: Hidden Stories of World War II'' opened at the National
Japanese American Historical Society just 10 days after the Sept. 11 attacks.
It is a collaboration among Americans of Japanese, Italian and German descent
detailing how America reacted when Pearl Harbor was bombed, an event so shocking
and brutal that we went to extraordinary lengths in usurping people's civil
rights.
The parallels bear watching. People were picked up and detained. Calls were
made for tightening civil liberties.
In 1942, our government argued it should allow search warrants of a house
simply because an ``enemy'' alien lived there, said Larry DiStasi, who just
completed a book, ``Una Storia Segreta: The Secret History of Italian American
Evacuation and Internment during World War II'' (Heyday Books, 2001). In
2001, our government has pushed through lower standards for wiretapping,
if the information is argued to be relevant to an investigation.
``What's interesting to me now is how reasonable it always sounds,'' said
DiStasi, who contributed to the exhibit. ``In the face of a threat -- in
this case a mysterious threat -- the justification always sounds reasonable.''
But the devil is in the execution. People get hurt. And the effects last
a lifetime.
No, this column isn't going to be about the egregious internment of 120,000
Japanese and Japanese-Americans in this country.
But I will talk about Title 50 of the U.S. Code, which allowed the detention
of 30,000 people -- Japanese, Italian, German, and other Europeans -- in
the days and weeks following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. If you visit the
exhibit, you'll see how some 600,000 Italians across the country were forced
to register as enemy aliens and carry photo ID booklets. And that some 10,000
Europeans, such as Italian fishermen at Monterey Bay, were made to move from
coastal areas inland or had their boats confiscated and thus lost their livelihoods,
like Joe DiMaggio's father. And how some 10,000 German-Americans were detained
in internment camps for years.
It is the Alien Enemy Act, Title 50, Chapter 3, Sect. 21. And it's on the
books today.
``Whenever there is a declared war between the United States and any foreign
nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated,
attempted or threatened against the territory of the United States by any
foreign nation or government, and the President makes public proclamation
of the event, all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile
nation or government, being of the age 14 years and upward, who shall be
within the United States and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to
be apprehended, restrained, secured and removed as alien enemies . . .''
Think your government wouldn't do a thing like that?
Several Bay Area residents can tell you firsthand what it meant when the
government could hold you in detention indefinitely.
Lothar Eiserloh of San Francisco and Ingrid Eiserloh Shofner of Richmond
were 6 and 11 when their father, Mathias, was picked up by the FBI from their
Ohio home and taken to a Crystal City, Texas, detention camp. The entire
family ended up at the camp. Four years later, in the middle of the war,
even the children, who were American citizens, ended up getting sent to Germany
as a prisoner exchange. They always suspected that neighbors had reported
them as suspicious because they were German.
``How do you balance concerns of national security and civil liberties?''
asked John Christgau, a Belmont author who was one of the first to write
about the internment of individuals under Title 50 with his book ``Enemies.''
With some vigilance. Like now: Many groups, ranging from the Electronic Frontier
Foundation to the American Civil Liberties Union, actively lobbied -- with
not much success -- for changes on the bill that Bush will sign.
``I don't quarrel with people who have to make wartime decisions,'' said
DiStasi. ``But it's important for people to get together to unite in a voice
and make sure this is done in the open and everyone understands that is what
is happening.''
Because it's all too clear that abuses can happen again.
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L.A. Chung appears Tuesdays and Saturdays and wants you to share your stories
with her. Contact her at lchung@sjmercury.com or (415) 394-6881.