Hello everybody.I'm a new member,i'm italian and i'm interested about the italian mafia in USA.Here in italy the only ways to know about the american mafia are books and some news articles on internet.Now finally i found this forum where i can read and know a lot of interesting things.
Now i have two questions:
- i would to know the difference between made men and associates
- the made men and the associates are all and only italians?how is possible that families continue to recruit italian men?where they get all these italians today that the immigration phenomena is over?
- currently in the territory of new york there is a neighborhood populated mostly by the mafia where there are social club and italian bar as i watch in various film(donnie brasco,goodfellas,a bronx tale,sopranos)?or this is just a thing of past?
i hope i've been clear,i'm sorry for my not good english.Please answer!!!
Frank, welcome to the boards. And do not apologize for your english. It is fine.
While there are still some scattered Social clubs around NYC, for the most part it is a thing of the past. What you see in movies like Donnie Brasco is what is known as Little Italy in Manhattan. At one time Little Italy was pretty big in both how the mob occcupied it and also in the size of the area.
However over the years most of the mobsters that once ran and occupied Little Italy have died or have gone to prison. The reason that the area itself has gotten smaller is because many of the old Italians that used to live there have passed on and their children and grandchildren sold off what was left to them. The area itself is more of a Chinatown than a Little Italy.
As for associates and made men, well for the most part it is probably not that different than in Italy. An associate is just that. He is associated with the Mob or a Made Man. He is an earner without any real power. An associate does NOT have to be Italian. As for being a full blooded Sicilian to be a made man, well that used to be the case but over the years and the modernization of The Mafia, that requirement fell by the wayside for the most part.
I hope that I have answered some of your questions. Please enjoy these boards, have fun, and do not be afraid to ask for help or to ask more questions.
I look forward to your sharing, with us, the knowledge that you may have about the Italian Mafia in Napoli and in Italy.
If you really want to learn about the Mafia here in the USA, it's origins and it's rise and fall, I highly recommend a book title
THE FIVE FAMILIES by
Selwyn Raab 
