Marine Debris Emergency Act of 2013

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share a letter that I recently received from Chet Campanella of San Jose. Mr. Campanella is an Italian American who experienced firsthand the injustices committed against Italians living in America during World War II. He has been sharing his story, and his efforts to raise awareness resulted in a formal acknowledgment and apology from the State of California in 2010.

Many are familiar with the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II, partly due to the enactment of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians Act in 1980, the Commission's report in 1983, and the subsequent Civil Liberties Act of 1988 that provided an official apology for the internment of Japanese Americans. What remains less well known is the mistreatment of thousands of Japanese and European Latin Americans, European Americans, and Jewish refugees that took place prior to and during WWII.

The 1980 Commission did address the mistreatment of Japanese, German, and Italian Latin Americans, but only in the appendix to its report. Just one chapter of thirteen addressed the mistreatment of German and Italian Americans in the U.S. Moreover, no recommendations were made with regard to these populations and no official apology was issued-- unlike for Japanese internment.

This is an issue that I've been involved with for several years. In 2008, I worked with a number of my colleagues to amend a Japanese- American internment resolution to include injustices committed against European Americans during World War II. As amended and passed by the House, H. Res. 1357 specifically expressed Congress' resolve to ``review the wartime treatment of . . . Italian Americans, to determine whether they should also receive an apology and reparations similar to that provided in the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 for Japanese Americans interned during World War II.'' The following year, as Chair of the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law, I led a hearing that featured testimony from experts detailing the severe injustices suffered by Italian Americans and other groups during this difficult time in our nation's history. Under my leadership, the subcommittee also considered H.R. 1425, the ``Wartime Treatment Study Act,'' which called for a commission to study and issue a report on the treatment of European-Americans during World War II. Although the bill

made it through the subcommittee and was reported favorably by the full Judiciary Committee, the bill was not taken up on the House floor.

I urge my colleagues to take the time to read Mr. Campanella's letter.

February, 2014.

Hon. Zoe Lofgren,

Longworth House Office Building,

Washington, DC.

Dear Representative Lofgren: My name is Chet Campanella,

and I am writing this letter to ask that you and all members

of Congress vote in favor of giving us Italian survivors a

formal public apology on behalf of our United States

government for the mistreatments and injustices suffered by

Italian ``Enemy Aliens'' here in the U.S. during World War