By early 1942, the once bustling Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco had become a virtual ghost town. The thriving crab and fish stalls, seafood restaurants, and swinging nightclubs were quiet. The formally formidable fishing fleet shrunk from 400 to 40. The U.S. had entered World War II and banned all the Italian-Americans who hadn't become U.S. citizens from coming within a half-mile of the California coast.

Fishermen of Sicilian descent had dominated the industry around San Francisco for years, and many of the older immigrants who'd come to America at the turn of the century hadn't become citizens. The U.S. government now classified them as enemy aliens.