While delving into the lives of my Sicilian family, whose immigration journeys led them to Gloucester’s Fort, I uncovered documents branding my grandfathers, Filippo Millefoglie and Pietro Favazza, as “Enemy Aliens.” This discovery shed light on a troubling history that profoundly impacted Italian Americans, including Gloucester’s fishing community. On Dec. 8, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Proclamation No. 2527, declaring that “subjects of Italy being of the age of fourteen years and older…are termed alien enemies.” 600,000 Italian Americans, one of the largest ethnic groups in the United States, were forced to register, carry identification cards, and adhere to travel restrictions. The order imposed a curfew and the surrender of cameras, shortwave radios, and flashlights. 10,000 Italian Americans were evicted from their homes; some were imprisoned. Its impact reverberated throughout Gloucester. The Gloucester Daily Times headlined “Drastic Rules Laid Down for Enemy Aliens,” detailed restrictions and bans. Sicilian fishermen, integral to Gloucester’s fishing economy, were barred from the waterfront and cut off from their livelihood. Addressing their plight, one local politician suggested a “community farm” to provide food for these “outcasts.” My grandfathers were embedded in Gloucester’s fishing community, a force of 450 men working on more than thirty large draggers and many smaller boats. These families had 300 sons in the Allied armed services, some flying missions over their ancestral villages. Sicilians filed for naturalization, but many had their applications deferred or denied. The persecution faced by Italian Americans during WWII remains relatively unknown. My project seeks to fill a gap in maritime history by examining how Proclamation No. 2527 uprooted the lives of Gloucester’s Sicilian fishing community—families whose survival depended on the sea—and how these events impacted the local fishing industry.