Certificate of Naturalization for Nereo Brombal, 1927

Certificate of Naturalization for Nereo Brombal, No. 58317(?), dated February 18, 1927 and signed by the Secretary of State and the Undersecretary of State of Canada.

The certificate reads:

The Naturalization Acts, 1914 and 1920
Certificate of Naturalization

I the undersigned Secretary of State of Canada do hereby certify and declare that NEREO BROMBAL whose particulars are enclosed herein, is hereby naturalized as a British subject that he is entitled to all political and other rights, powers and privileges, and subject to all obligations, duties and liabilities to which a natural born British subject is entitled or subject and that he has to all intents and purposes the status of a natural born British subject.
In testimony whereof, I have hereinso subscribed my name and affixed the Seal of the Department of the Secretary of State of Canada this Eighteenth day of February 1927.

After the Italian declaration of war, all Italian Canadians naturalized after September 1, 1922 were declared enemy aliens.

Nereo Brombal immigrated to Canada from Italy ca. 1914. He had met his German-born wife in northern Ontario. The family would settle in Windsor and the Brombals had 2 children.

In 1940, Brombal was fired from the Windsor Police Department due to his Italian birth. His son Douglas remembers a few tense years during the war, given his mixed German/Italian family.

Brombal would never return to his position as a police officer. However, in December 1990, the Windsor Police Commission apologized to Brombal's family. They also created Camp Brombal, for underpriviliged kids, and run by volunteers from the police department, in Nereo Brombal's honour.