Did you know...
That Italian Americans served in World War I and supported the allies in any way they could? When Benito Mussolini rose to power in Italy in 1920, Italian Americans supported him because they hoped his policies would help their relatives in Italy. They also believed that Italy's expansion into Ethiopia and Somalia would add to the pride of Italians everywhere.
But these feelings of support changed when World War II began, and Mussolini aligned himself with Hitler! Once again, Italians placed their loyalty with their adopted country, not Italy. The choice was easy for the Italians in America. They looked at their children and realized that the future lay with the young not with the old, and with a democracy that fulfilled its promises not with forces that lied and ignored them. But during World War II, the American government ordered all Italians to register as enemy aliens. They where considered suspicious, but after a short time, this was dropped because Italian Americans were unquestionably loyal to the United States!