Women and Bootleggers
The Italian WOMEN are the ones that decided to NOT ALLOW their children to speak Italian outside the home so they can be considered real Americans and speak English.
I know that my own grandma and her cousin were spat at for walking on the sidewalk instead of the gutter. And my grandma's cousin gave that man such a beating with her pocketbook. This is what we Italians had to go through in the early 1900's. This is why there were wiseguys to PROTECT the Italian people from all the discrimination. We couldn't trust the police the government why would they help our people. During ww2 the Italian ppl were considered enemies of the U.S. They had curfews allowed to go only to and from work. Of course there's more I can add but that's enough for now.
Bootlegging made us all rich and we were able to dig ourselves out of the gutter.
Every Italian had a bootlegger in the family:)
Do you actually believe this though?
The majority of Italians and Italian-Americans were not involved in organized crime or the mob.
Yes some were; but this does not mean that the majority of people were since they were not.
Would making wine at home be considered "bootlegging"? I mean it's not buying it in a store. I have Italian relatives who did this, and they still do it but they do not sell it they just give it away to other family members and friends, or share a small glass of it with people during a dinner.
Also a lot of old Italian immigrants I have met and their kids who are first generation Italian-Americans did not like the mob and said how the idea that they were somehow protected by the mob was a myth. They said that the Italian mob would extort money from local Italian run mom and pop run businesses.
