Why Weren the German and Italian Americans Interned?
One thing that many people ask is, why weren’t Italian Americans and German Americans interned too? Some would go so far as to claim that this contrast invalidates any conceivable military justification for the internment. In my research I was motivated mostly to find out what the case for the military necessity of the internment was. At first I didn’t address the issue of interning the German and Italian Americans in my research because I thought it was self evident, but in my research on the situation with the Japanese, I did pick up a little bit. Since so many people, even intelligent people, seriously raise this issue, I will state the obvious. Firstly, German and Italian nationals were not left alone, and in fact many got locked up. When the war began, the white enemy aliens were subject to the same sort of interrogation and arbitrary searches that Japanese nationals received. Initial plans for internment called for the internment of all ethnic Japanese, along with German and Ital
