Vancouver City Council unanimously agreed on Tuesday to formally apologize to Italian-Canadians in June for injustices and damage that previous city councils have upheld and perpetuated against “alien enemies” during World War II. The apology will be read at a council meeting to coincide with Italian Heritage Month, and city staff will also consider placing a public art facility in an unspecified location in Vancouver to honor the apology. “I think it is very important as a city to recognize history, to recognize mistakes, to recognize the role of the city at that time,” Koon said. Lisa Dominato, which is of Italian heritage. Following the declaration of Canada’s war on Italy in 1940, the Canadian government instructed the RCMP to recruit Italian Canadians who were considered a threat because of their affiliation with the Fascist Party in Canada.
“Alien enemies”
In Vancouver, about 33 Italians joined the rally and were considered “alien enemies”, a term used in a City Council move in 1942. The Italians were later imprisoned in camps at Kananaskis, Alta. and Petawawa, Ont. In addition, the Mounties, in collaboration with the Vancouver Police Department, commissioned 1,300 to 1,800 Italians to report each month to the RCMP headquarters, which no longer operate at 33rd Avenue and Heather Street. “The detainees were men, many of whom were forced to flee their families, in many cases including young children, businesses and entire livelihoods,” said a report by city staff prepared for the city council, which included a apology plan. “Apart from the financial difficulties that many families faced because their feeders were removed, the stigma, humiliation and shame they experienced because they were targeted and had to report to the government on a regular basis remained for several years after the end of the war. ”
Ethnic slander
None of the men, who spent an average of 15 and a half months in the camps, were charged with a crime. Everyone has died since then, including Koon. Melissa De Genova’s great-grandfather, who was among the prisoners. De Genova shared with the city council on Tuesday that her great-grandfather’s concern about being targeted for his inheritance made him change the family name from Di Genova to De Genova to make it sound “less Italian”. This was done to help him find a job and fit in with the wider community in which he was the target of ethnic slander, said De Genova, who was behind the council’s push for a formal apology from the Italian community. Before her grandfather died, or not, she said “she shared with me the pain, the trauma and the shame that the incarceration brought to our family”. Even today, De Genova added, Italians continue to be a target for their heritage. “Eighty years later, I would like to believe that we have moved on, but the insults and stereotypes against people of Italian heritage are true and still exist,” he said. “I know this because a few months ago, a group of activists who disagreed with me on a policy printed a T-shirt calling me Melissa ‘spaghetti’ De Genova and suggested that I follow a trail of money. “What I can only conclude from that was a reference to the mafia.”
‘Goodwill gesture’
Author Raymond Culos, known as the leading historian of the Italian community, told the council that the treatment of Italians in Vancouver during the war made it clear that an apology was justified and necessary. “An expression of sadness and remorse from the city of Vancouver would certainly be a gesture of goodwill,” Culos said. “It would also serve as an antidote to the prolonged mental anguish of the descendants of those who endured such pain and suffering, and in some cases, financial loss as a result of often unexplained actions taken by overzealous authorities 80 years ago.” The apology comes after Prime Minister Justin Trinto addressed the House of Commons last year to apologize for the unjust incarceration of Italian-Canadians during World War II. Also last year, Mayor Kennedy Stewart read an official apology in the council hall to recognize the historic distinction made against 376 passengers traveling on the Komagata Maru steamer from British India in 1914. In 2018, the council led by Gregor Robertson apologized to the Chinese Canadians at a ceremony in Chinatown for historic mistakes caused and perpetuated by previous city councils. In 2014, the same council declared Vancouver a city of reconciliation. [email protected] @Howellings
