Vol. 13 No. 1 (2026): Education and Migration in North America (1837-1983)
Monographic Section Articles

“Fifth Columns” at School Desks? Toward a History of Foreign (or Alleged) Anti-Americanism in U.S. Schools

PDF (Italian)
  • Matteo Pretelli
Matteo Pretelli
Università di Napoli “L’Orientale”, Italia
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/rse-19521

Published 2026-06-17

Keywords

  • fifth column,
  • schools,
  • United States

How to Cite

Pretelli, M. (2026). “Fifth Columns” at School Desks? Toward a History of Foreign (or Alleged) Anti-Americanism in U.S. Schools. Rivista Di Storia dell’Educazione, 13(1), 65–75. https://doi.org/10.36253/rse-19521

Copyright (c) 2026 Matteo Pretelli

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

The essay analyzes the concept of the “fifth column” in relation to the U.S. school system. In particular, it shows how, during times of crisis throughout the twentieth century, the United States consistently feared the influence of foreign countries or anti-American ideologies within its schools. Educational institutions established within ethnic communities tied to immigrants’ countries of origin have likewise frequently attracted scrutiny. The essay focuses on these recurring fears, beginning with World War I and continuing through the end of the Cold War, before turning to the crisis following September 11, 2001, and the recent rise of People’s Republic of China.

PDF (Italian)

References

  1. Adachi, Nobuhiro. 1996. Linguistic Americanization of Japanese-Americans in Hawaii. Osaka: Osaka Kyoiku.
  2. Adler, Les K., e Paterson, Thomas G. 1970. “Red Fascism: The Merger of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia in the American Image of Totalitarianism, 1930’s-1950’s.” The American Historical Review 75 (4): 1046-64. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/75.4.1046
  3. Allen-Ebrahimianm, Bethany. 2018. “China’s Long Reaches into American Campuses.” Foreign Policy, 7 marzo. Ultimo accesso 28 febbraio 2025. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/07/chinas-long-arm-reaches-into-american-campuses-chinese-students-scholars-association-university-communist-party/.
  4. Alpers, Benjamin. 2003. Dictators, Democracy, and American Public Culture: Envisioning the Totalitarian Enemy, 1920s-1950s. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
  5. Antonelli, Sara, Scacchi, Anna, e Scannavini, Anna. 2005. La Babele americana. Lingue e identità negli Stati Uniti d’oggi. Roma: Donzelli.
  6. Azuma, Eiichiro. 2005. Between Two Empires: Race, History, and Transnationalism in Japanese America. New York: Oxford University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195159400.001.0001
  7. Barr, Michael. 2011. Who’s Afraid of China? The Challenge of Chinese Soft Power. New York: Zed Books. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350223967
  8. Bauer-Wolf, Jeremy. 2021. “Biden administration walks back federal oversight of Confucius Institutes.” 10 febbraio. Ultimo accesso 12 dicembre 2025. https://www.highereddive.com/news/biden-administration-walks-back-federal-oversight-of-confucius-institutes/594867/.
  9. Bergen, Peter, e Swati Pandey. 2005. “The Madrassa Myth.” New York Times, 14 giugno. Ultimo accesso 12 dicembre 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/14/opinion/the-madrassa-myth.html.
  10. Bergen, Peter and Swati Pandey. 2006. “The Madrassa Scapegoat.” The Washington Quarterly 29 (2): 117-125. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1162/016366006776026194
  11. Bertonha, Joao Fabio Bertonha, e Athaides, Rafael. 2023. The Nazi Party and the German Communities Abroad. New York: Routledge.
  12. Blanchard, Christopher M. 2008. Islamic Religious Schools, Madrasas: Background, CRS Report for Congress. 23 gennaio 2008. Ultimo accesso 11 luglio 2025. https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/RS21654.html.
  13. Canedy, Susan. 1990. America’s Nazi: A Democratic Dilemma. A History of the German American Bund. Menlo Park: Markgraf Publications.
  14. Bruscino, Thomas. 2010. A Nation Forged in War: How World War II Taught Americans to Get Along. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press.
  15. Cannistraro, Philip V. 1999. Blackshirts in Little Italy: Italian Americans and Fascism, 1921-1929. West Lafayette: Bordighera.
  16. Crawford, James. 2000. At War with Diversity: U.S. Language Policy in an Age of Anxiety. New York: Clevendon. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21832/9781853596766
  17. Dalrymple, William. 2005. “Inside the Madrasas.” The New York Review of Books, 1° dicembre 2005. Ultimo accesso 12 dicembre 2015. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2005/12/01/inside-the-madrasas/. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5149/northcarolina/9781469620138.003.0001
  18. De Tocqueville, Alexis. 2018. La democrazia in America. Milano: Mondadori.
  19. Dies, Martin. 1940. The Trojan Horse in America. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company.
  20. Dies, Martin. 1963. Martin Dies’ Story. New York: Bookmailer.
  21. DiStasi, Lawrence. 2001. “How World War II Iced Italian American Culture”. In Una Storia Segreta: The Secret History of Italia American Evacuation and Internment during World War II, a cura di Lawrence DiStasi, 303-313. Berkeley: Heyday Books.
  22. Doerries, Reinhard R. 1993. “Promoting Kaiser and Reich: Imperial German Propaganda in the United States during World War I.” In Confrontation and Cooperation: Germany and the United States in the Era of World War I, 1900-1924, a cura di Hans-Jurgen Schroder, 135-157. Providence: Berg.
  23. Elliott, Andrea, 2008. “Critics Cost Muslm Educator Her Dream School.” New York Times. 28 aprile. Ultimo accesso 10 dicembre 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/28/nyregion/28school.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin.
  24. Evans, Alexander. 2006. “Understanding Madrasahs.” Foreign Affairs gennaio/febbraio: 9-16. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/20031838
  25. Ewing, Thomas E. 2006. “The ‘Virtues of Planning’: American Educators Look at Soviet Schools.” In Education and Great Depression: Lessons from a Global History, a cura di Thomas E. Ewing e David Hicks, 41-61. New York: Peter Lang.
  26. Foster, Stuart. 2000. Red Alert! Educators Confront the Red Scare in American Public Schools, 1947-1954. New York: Peter Lang.
  27. French, Howard W. 2006. “Another Chinese Export Is All the Rage: China’s Language.” New York Times, 11 gennaio. Ultimo accesso 2 dicembre 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/11/world/asia/another-chinese-export-is-all-the-rage-chinas-language.html.
  28. Gertz, Bill. 2021. “Biden ends disclosures on China Institutes.” Washington Times. 10 febbraio. Ultimo accesso 12 dicembre 2025. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/feb/10/joe-biden-ends-confucius-institute-disclosures/.
  29. Greer, Colin. 1972. The Great School Legend: A Revisionist Interpretation of An American Public Education. New York: Basic Books.
  30. Finkelman, Paul. 1993. “The War on German Language and Culture, 1917-1925.” In Confrontation and Cooperation: Germany and the United States in the Era of World War I, 1900-1914, a cura di Hans-Jürgen Schröder, 177-205. Providence-Oxford: Berg.
  31. Frye, Alton. 1967. Nazi Germany and the American Hemisphere, 1933-1941. New Haven: Yale University Press.
  32. Fuss, Paula. 2006. “Immigration and Education in the United States.” In A Companion to American Immigration, a cura di Reed Ueda, 493-511. Malden-Oxford: Blackwell.
  33. Gellermann, William. 1944. Martin Dies. New York: John Day.
  34. Gleason, Abbott. 1995. Totalitarianism: The Inner History of the Cold War. New York: Oxford University Press.
  35. Hanighen, Frank C. 1937. “Foreign Political Movements in the United States.” Foreign Affairs, 16: 1-20. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/20028824
  36. Hoxie, Frederick E. 1984. A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians, 1880-1920. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  37. Huntington, Samuel P. 1996. Lo scontro delle civiltà e il nuovo ordine mondiale. Milano: Garzanti.
  38. Kramer, Paul A. 2009. “Is the World Our Campus? International Students and U.S. Global Power in the Long Twentieth Century.” Diplomatic History 33 (5): 775-806. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7709.2009.00829.x
  39. Kurlantizick, Joshua. 2007. Charm Offensive: How China’s Soft Power is Transforming the World. New Haven: Yale University Press.
  40. Lee, Erika. 2021. America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States. New York: Basic Books. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/sor.2021.0047
  41. Levine, Steve and Zahin Hussain. 2005. “Pakistan’s Broad Education Ills.” Wall Street Journal. 19 agosto. Ultimo accesso 11 dicembre 2025. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB112439683039116960.
  42. Lleras-Muney, Adriana, and Shertzer, Allison. 2015. “Did the Americanization Movement Succeed? An Evaluation of the Effect of English-Only and Compulsory Schooling Laws on Immigrants,” American Economic Journal 7 (3): 258-290. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1257/pol.20120219
  43. Luconi, Stefano, e Matteo Pretelli. 2024. “Nazione di immigrati” o “fortezza America”. Gli Stati Uniti e le minoranze etniche nel XXI secolo. Milano: Mondadori.
  44. MacDonnell, Francis, 2004. Insidious Foes: The Axis Fifth Column and the American Home Front. Guildford: The Lyons Press.
  45. Marin Forbes, Susan. 1998. “Language and Immigration.” In Crossing Borders: Regional and Urban Perspectives on International Migration, a cura di Cees Gorter, Peter Nijkamp, Jacques Poot, 191-146. Aldershot: Ashgate.
  46. Merry, Michael. S. 2009. “Patriotism, History and the Legitimate Aims of American Education.” In Patriotism and Citizenship Education, a cura di Bruce Haynes, 1-20. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444322842.ch1
  47. Morimoto, Toyotomi. 1997. Japanese Americans and Cultural Continuity: Maintaining Language and Heritage. New York. Garland.
  48. Ngai, Mae M. 1998. “Legacies of Exclusion: Illegal Chinese Immigration during the Cold War Years.” Journal of American Ethnic History 18 (1): 3-35.
  49. Ottanelli, Fraser. 1991. The Communist Party of the United States: From the Depression to World War II. New Brunswick: Rurgers University Press.
  50. Peterson, Rachelle. 2017. “American Universities are Welcoming China’s Trojan Horse.” Foreign Policy. 9 maggio. Ultimo accesso 29 febbraio 2025. https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/05/09/american-universities-are-welcoming-chinas-trojan-horse-confucius-institutes/.
  51. Pipes, Daniel. 2005. “What Are Islamic Schools Teaching?” New York Sun, 29 marzo. Ultimo accesso 11 dicembre 2025. https://www.meforum.org/what-are-islamic-schools-teaching.
  52. Proctor, Tammy M. 2014. “‘Patriotic Enemies:’ Germans in the Americas, 1914-1920.” In Germans as Minorities during the First World War: A Global Comparative Perspective, a cura di Panilos Panayi, 213-235. Burlington: Ashgate.
  53. Reese Cain, Timothy. 2014. “Little Red Schoolhouses? Anti-Communists and Education in an ‘Age of Conflicts’.” ‘Red Scares’: Anti-Communism and Political Repression in the United States, 1921-1946, a cura di Robert Justin Goldstein, 105-133. Burlington: Ashgate.
  54. Risen, Clay. 2025. Red Scare: Blacklists, Mccarthyism, and the Making of Modern America. New York: Scribner.
  55. Rudderham, Hannah Lindsay. 2021. “The ‘Educational Laboratory’: American Educators Visit Soviet Schools, 1925-1929.” Historical Studies in Education 33 (1): 50-69. DOI: https://doi.org/10.32316/hse-rhe.v33i1.4883
  56. Salvemini, Gaetano. 1940. Neither Liberty nor Bread: The Meaning and the Tragedy of Fascism. New York: Harper and Brothers.
  57. Saul, Stephanie. 2017. “On Campuses Far from China, Still Under Beijing’s Watchful Eye.” New York Times, 4 maggio: Section A, 1.
  58. Scribner, Campbell F. 2012. “’Make Your Voice Heard’: Communism in the High School Curriculum, 1958-1968.” History of Education Quarterly 52 (3): 351-369. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-5959.2012.00403.x
  59. Shambaugh, David. 2013. China Goes Global: The Partial Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  60. Trommler, Frank. 1993. “Inventing the Enemy: German-American Cultural Relations, 1900-1917.” In Confrontation and Cooperation: Germany and the United States in the Era of World War I, 1900-1914, a cura di Hans-Jürgen Schröder, 99-125. Providence-Oxford: Berg.
  61. Tyrrell, Ian. 2022. American Exceptionalism: A New History of an Old Idea. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226812120.001.0001
  62. Ueda, Reed. 2002. “An Early Transnationalism? The Japanese American Second Generation of Hawaii in the Interwar Years.” In The Changing Face of Home: The Transnational Lives of the Second Generation, a cura di Peggy Levitt e Mary C. Waters, 33-42. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
  63. Urhová, Dominika. 2024. “The Demise of Confucius Institutes: Retreating or Rebranding?” China Observers. 5 settembre. Ultimo accesso 13 dicembre 2025. https://chinaobservers.eu/the-demise-of-confucius-institutes-retreating-or-rebranding/.
  64. Valis, Noël. 2008. “Hemingway’s The Fifth Column, Fifthcolumnism, and the Spanish Civil War.” The Hemingway Review 28 (1): 19-34. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/hem.0.0022
  65. Vicente, Rafael L. 2009. “Translation, American English, and the National Insecurities of Empire,” Social Text 27 (4): 1-23. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-2009-052
  66. Widener, Alice. 1970. Teachers of Destruction: Their Plans for a Socialist Revolution. An Eyewitness Account. Washington: Citizens Evaluation Institute.
  67. Wiley, Terrence G., e Jin Sook Lee. 2009. “Introduction.” In The Education of Language Minority Immigrants in the United States, a cura di Terrence G. Wiley, Jin Sook Lee, Russell W. Rumberger, 2-34. Buffalo: Multilingual Matters.
  68. Yeung, Jessie. 2025. “US to screen for ‘anti-Americanismà in immigration applications, a move critics like to McCarthyism.” Edition.CNN. 20 agosto. Ultimo accesso 30 agosto 2025. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/08/19/us/us-immigrants-screening-anti-american-hnk?Date=20250820&Profile=CNN,CNN+International&utm_content=17556649.
  69. Zimmerman, Jonathan. 2002a. “Ethnics against Ethnicity: European Immigrants and Foreign-Language Instruction, 1890-1940.” Journal of American History 88 (4): 1383-1404. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2700602
  70. Zimmerman, Jonathan. 2002b. Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.