Adorno’s Years in California 299USA, campaigns against foreign takeovers were nothing new. But when
refugees were declared ‘enemy aliens’ and treated accordingly, it became
clear that anti-immigrant measures had reached new heights. These
measures were government-inspired and led in the long run from anti-
Nazism to anti-communism. They were combined with the propagandistic
ideological claim that the foundations of the Western democratic tradi-
tion were under threat. To this extent, Adorno’s fears that the West
Coast German immigrants might well be interned, as had happened in
France and Britain, and as was the case with the Japanese living in the
United States, were not unreasonable. Those who had not yet obtained
their naturalization papers found their movements severely restricted
by a curfew. A state of emergency had been declared in California,
and ‘enemy aliens’ were forbidden to leave their homes between
8 p.m. and 6 a.m.; they were also prohibited from going more than
5 miles from their houses. Adorno was of course forced to comply
with this order, since he received his ‘Certificate of Naturalization’ only
in November 1943, at which point he was formally registered under
the name of Theodore Adorno.^121 In his ‘Observations on the Curfew’,
which he published in 1942 in the leading exile newspaper Aufbau, Max
Horkheimer commented on ‘the horror that overcame... the isolated
émigré’ when faced by these restrictions on foreigners.^122 Adorno had
occasion to experience such feelings personally in the summer of 1942,
when he had a visit from the police in South Kenter Avenue to see
whether he and his wife were abiding by the rules and were actually at
home during the stipulated times of day. In a letter to his parents, he
complained about the situation, which he said was almost like being
imprisoned. The car outings that had become a habit for him and Gretel
had to be abandoned. And because of the petrol rationing, they would
now be immobilized and isolated for an indefinite period. He found it
quite incomprehensible that of all people it was the most reliable enemies
of Hitler who were being forced to suffer from these restrictions.
Adorno was a frequent blood donor, as a small gesture of solidarity
with the American people in its war with Hitler. And, as he told his
parents, he was given a small award as a token of recognition of this. But
he also had more important news from Santa Monica. Leo Löwenthal,
who had introduced his own parents to the Wiesengrunds in New York,
warned him to write ‘regularly’ and to be ‘more cheerful’ – that was his
‘humble advice’.^123 In response to this well-meaning suggestion – which
should not have been necessary for a son who was approaching forty –
Adorno regularly kept his parents informed about the current state
of his work with Horkheimer, about the seminars held by institute
members with a changing group of participants, including Bertolt Brecht,
Hanns Eisler, Eduard Steuermann, Günther Stern (= Günther Anders),
Ludwig Marcuse, Hans Reichenbach, etc. He also talked frequently of
the visitors he and his wife received in their attractively situated house.
Among these were the ‘extremely beautiful violinist’ Lisa Minghetti,