WWII service let European descendants claim Americanness

Evidence

The politics of World War II offered the children and grandchildren of Eastern and Southern European immigrants an opportunity to prove their loyalty to the United States. Fighting in the armed forces against Nazism and Fascism in Europe, these secondand third-generation Americans became the “us” fighting “them” in Germany and Italy. Many of them spoke only English, gave their children anglicized names, relinquished a communal lifestyle, and no longer had ties to their country of origin. Increased intermarriage further dissolved their ethnic differences, making it easier to blend into the dominant Anglo-Protestant culture. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 396

Categorization

• XREF: The loyalty-proving-through-military-service mechanism mirrors the reader’s prior material on how marginalized groups (including Muslims) are expected to perform patriotism to win acceptance.