Obviously the war is a big part of this, but the article makes it clear that wasn't the only factor. Right near the beginning: > Italian-Americans had faced pr

Obviously the war is a big part of this, but the article makes it clear that wasn't the only factor. Right near the beginning: > Italian-Americans had faced prejudice for decades by the time the order was drafted, says Guglielmo. Italians were the biggest group of immigrants to the United States who passed through Ellis Island for much of the late 19th and early 20th century; between 1876 and 1930, 5 million Italians moved to the U.S. Not without backlash: By the 1920s, pseudo-scientists and polemicists in the 1920s popularized the notion that Italians were a separate race from Anglo-Americans.