Cool scene, and thanks for the link to the full film, I'll check it out.

Joe Pesci not looking bad!

An example of what I'm talking about would be what we now call Cabrini Green in Chicago. Back in the mid-late 19th century it was an Irish ghetto called Kilgubbin. Then they moved on and it was a Sicilian ghetto called Little Hell. They built the Cabrini projects for the Sicilians but in the 40s blacks started moving in and the Sicilians cleared out within a few years, then it was the notorious black project Cabrini, which is now almost closed down as well.

I guess it's safe to say that tensions will often exist between new poor immigrants and the natives only a little better off than them when they are sharing the same space.