Jack Garcia pretending to be Sicilian didn't mean shit to Greg DePalma. Trust me on that. He could have said that his family was from Tuscany and it wouldn't have mattered to Greg. We're talking about a guy whose track record for taking a buck off an easy mark was so well documented that the Feds set the operation in motion BEFORE Greg was even released from prison. He was as predictable as the sunrise. I'm sure you can look that up in that fat fuck's book. And I don't mean to pick on you, Alfa. You're a bright guy and I've told you that before. But what I'm saying about Greg is common knowledge to people who live here and spent even a little time around the guy. Yet it's still not something that you're going to find in books or on the Internet.

As for the rest of your post, yes, the Sicilian thing mattered a great deal back then. But just like everything else in that life it has eroded more and more over time (and I'm obviously speaking about the American Mafia). Nowadays if your name ends in a vowel and you bring in a bag of money you're halfway there.