Fish Is A Fighting FoodEvacuation :: Panels
This panel depicts the plight of West Coast fishermen. Featured is the boat and family of Joe Spadaro of Monterey, whose purse seiner was one of scores requisitioned by the Navy for patrol duty. Like many others, Spadaro’s family had to leave Monterey because virtually the whole city lay in the prohibited zone east of U.S. Highway 1, and his wife was not a citizen. The Monterey fleet, until then enjoying a boom in sardine fishing, was decimated by the Navy’s requisitions. The Piazza family of San Francisco and Joe Aiello’s family in Pittsburg were also hard hit.
Panel Details
Joe Aiello worked at the Booth Cannery in Pittsburg CA. Unable to read or write, he never applied for citizenship and thus was forced to evacuate as an enemy alien. Having just had surgery, he left his home in a wheelchair.
One of a series of posters that urged increased food production during the war. But because of restrictions on enemy alien fishermen, and because many sardine fishing boats were requisitioned, the supplies of this “fighting food” were drastically cut until some restrictions were lifted.
Salvatore Piazza family, with Rosa Piazza Alioto, and her father-in-law, Antonio Alioto, also a fisherman, mending his nets
This Monterey Peninsula Herald article details the impact of the restrictions and boat requisitions on Monterey’s fishing fleet.
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