Ted, although they're the same race as you call it. I myself don't consider Italian Americans white. The white people are Anglo Americans or people of Northern European descent. Mexicans and Italians have a lot of similarities.
It depends. Look at how Paul Castellano and most of the NY mobsters thought about Hispanics. Then you also had plenty of Hispanics who worked with the mob. I don't think the Italian gangsters think they're the same as the Hispanics. Italians are closer to Caucasians than they are to Mestizos.
The reason the California mobsters were closer to the Hispanics is because the AB didn't become a force until much later than the Mexican prison gangs. The choice was between aligning with the blacks or the Mexicans.
