The history of Italian Mobsters Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The story of Italian Mobsters - Essay ExampleWhy is this so? Where does this image of the gangster come from? Why as a monster type are we both attracted and repulsed by his (or less often her) screen forepart? (Florida State University, 2011). Indeed, the Mobs heroic theme was a major part of the censorship of the early Hays canon (Florida State University, 2011). The Italian mob were complex social agents They were both ruthless social parasites and community guards, representatives of Italian communities and their enigmatical shame, successful businessmen and criminals. The Italian mafia were far from alone In The Ethnic Myth, Steinberg (1991) points push through that at one point one sixth of the unionised crime in New York was Jewish But it is true that the Italians were powerful in New Jersey, New York, Chicago and Las Vegas. La Cosa Nostra was a Sicilian institution, but in the States, its start and success had to do with one factor Prohibition. The Prohibition era of t he mid-twenties gave rise to the organized crime syndicate in the United States. Federal efforts to enforce prohibition, including raids on speakeasies, were countered by well-organized bootlegging operations with national and international connections. A particularly notorious gang of the times was Al Capones mob in Chicago. There were also gangs in Detroit, New York and new(prenominal) cities. Wars among gangs, producing grisly killings, frequently do headlines (US History, 2011). The FBI traces the history of La Cosa Nostra from Sicily These enterprises evolved over the course of 3,000 years during numerous periods of invasion and exploitation by numerous conquering armies in Italy. Over the millennia, Sicilians became more clannish and began to rely on familial ties for safety, protection, justice, and survival. An underground secret society formed initially as resistance fighters against the invaders and to exact frontier vigilante justice against oppression. A member was kn own as a Man Of Honor, respected and admired because he protected his family and friends and unploughed silent even unto death. Sicilians werent concerned if the group profited from its actions because it came at the expense of the oppressive authorities. These secret societies in the end grew into the Mafia (2011). It is important to note, though, that not all of the people in La Cosa Nostra in America were autochthonous mobsters in Sicily. Rather, the social form was transplanted because of new conditions. It was difficult for immigrants to eke out a living in the America of the early 1900s. Prohibition made an obvious opportunity emerge The distribution, production and consumption of alcohol would be the business model. As the Nevada Observer (1987) put it in their comprehensive time line of La Cosa Nostra (LCN), Although organized crime had existed in the United States prior to this time, it was the bonanza of Prohibition which enabled the small, but powerful, LCN to capitali ze upon its international contacts, its reputation for ruthlessness, and--above all--its rigidly disciplined structure of cooperating gangs to establish the position of unrivaled eminence it holds in the American pit today. But La Cosa Nostra didnt end with Prohibition. Once the organizations were created, it was too easy to use them for all sorts of other enterprises.