CRIMINALS WITH ITALIAN NAMES AND AMERICAN UPBRINGING

Correspondents of Italian newspapers in the United States have been reporting that several Italian American organizations are protesting a television show about organized crime that mixes together famous known criminals—beginning with Al Capone—and many fictional characters, all with Italian last names. The show, The Untouchables,[1] will not return next year and the Italian organizations took it as a sign that their complaints were successful in forcing its cancellation. The producers, on the other hand, insist that the reasons are purely business related. But it is still significant that a promise had previously been made that the characters would no longer have Italian names.

In the past, Italian immigrants in the United States were represented in cartoons as little men with olive complexion; short and squatty; with a mustache, grinding an organ while a monkey extracted fortune-telling colored cards from a hat and handed them out to passer-bys in exchange for a few pennies in the beggar’s tin cup. When I first arrived in New York I still remember seeing maybe four or five of them, with the kind pathetic frinfrin that showed up in the poetry of the young Aldo Palazzeschi[2] and Sergio Corazzini.[3] By now they are all gone. After being elected mayor, Fiorello La Guardia stopped issuing new licenses; and, despite the fact that their presence was a picturesque and even moving feature of this city, I must agree that it was the right decision. In any case it is improbable that any young second-generation Italian American would have continued the tradition and the nomadic existence of a beggar—their peculiar charm notwithstanding. By the time new licenses stopped being issued; factories, businesses and other job opportunities in the private and public sectors were offering far superior and more respectable living wages and social status.

My personal opinion about the effects of the complaints by Italian American associations against that television show is that they will have no influence whatsoever on the attitude of American public opinion. In the United States today nobody harbors prejudices against citizens of Italian descent based on the reason that there have been numerous crime figures of Italian origin. I never felt around me the suspicion that I was carrying a knife in my pocket; or that at night I was hanging out with people who were planning a break-in into a store; or a hit to get rid of a traitor. Other Italians feel the same way. I asked people who moved from humble origins to relevant social positions: in school well-behaved Italian American boys and girls aren’t singled out for harassment nor are they targeted or taunted for alleged connections to the mob. On the other hand, the American public believes that the major criminal organizations are in the hands of people of Italian descent and, more specifically, of Sicilians. This opinion derives from the fact that Italian names often appear in news stories on organized crime and also because of fiction-like episodes such as the meeting of crime figures in the small town of Apalachin, where all the participants had Italian last names.

All symbolic representations of a people and the general opinions expressed about them from the outside are always inadequate, often negative and sometimes even openly libelous. Simplification and generalization neglect many positive aspects. The little organ grinder could not possibly symbolize an entire population that had proved time and again to be composed by a large majority of very hard-working people. However, these stereotypical representations also contain elements of truth. Both the organ grinders and the Mafiosi did exist. Indeed, Mafiosi still exist today. But I believe the habit of connecting an Italian name to organized-crime activities will probably disappear from city streets the same way Italian organ grinders did.

The legends surrounding Mafia aren’t born in a vacuum. I confess and maintain that I am much happier to associate myself with the race of Al Capone than with that of the organ grinders. I also prefer the characters in the Inferno[4] to those in the Limbo.[5] It is nevertheless perfectly understandable why the Italian population, which has so successfully become integrated into American life, is disturbed to find itself described in such negative terms in a popular show. There is also no doubt that the official doctrine (but not the outright practice) of the media and the American government is that discrimination against citizens based on race or religion should not exist. Lastly, Italians have witnessed other racial minorities rebel against offensive representations and obtain reparation (although they seem to me to be rather inconsequential victories). Therefore, if Italian Americans have protested in the typical American way, using the media and with demonstrations in front of the television stations that broadcast The Untouchables; and, finally, if they have boycotted products from American companies that sponsored the show with advertisements; well, more power to them. They did the right thing. Moreover, if the cancellation was truly caused by their protest, that would mean that they have political muscle too. In every country in the world this counts a lot, but in America it counts even more.

In the end, however, I don’t agree with the protest strategy of Italian Americans. I believe they should have let sleeping dogs lie. If the names of our fellow-countrymen disappeared from television, they would pop up on radio. And if they were removed from radio, they would show up in newspapers and in depositions during trials. Finally, it seems to me that Italian Americans, who are so worried about the good name of Italians, behave like those who hide the thermometer that shows a fever: the fever doesn't go away. I also fear the counter-reactions caused by these demonstrations: the protest movement should not be headed by certain individuals whose reputation raises even larger doubts.[6] I was comforted that my opinion is indeed correct when I read a column by John Crosby[7] in the Herald Tribune.[8] Crosby is a very accomplished journalist, with a great reputation for integrity, independence and straightforwardness. Here is what he wrote:

This campaign is hard to take for a writer. A writer, crazy as he may be, uses his ears and eyes to observe society and to report how society is faring and how life is. He writes what he sees and hears. For instance, a writer who read about the dragnet of dubious characters in Apalachin certainly would have noticed that every single last name was Italian and could have concluded that there is a quite a number of Italians in criminal organizations. And in fact it would be rather difficult for any writer to write the history of criminal organizations in this country without going back to Al Capone—and even farther in the past—without filling the story almost exclusively with Italian names. At the risk of drawing the ire of the Italian American Anti-Defamation League I must point to the fact that Italians and particularly Sicilians have a genius for thuggery and criminal organizations in a percentage larger than other national groups. True, Arturo Toscanini is also one of them! Italians are a pleasant people, with a warm heart and they know how to sing. But they have also produced a bunch of criminals.

The article is much longer. It is strong and funny. I can’t reproduce more here, lest I get accused by Crosby of being an Italian literary criminal who plagiarizes from an American colleague to look good. Now, Crosby’s pieces are read by people more numerous and more important than those who read the flighty and irrelevant Italian American press. It seems to me that demonstrations in front of movie theaters and television studios have only had the effect of reinforcing the general opinion still existing in America on organized crime; on Italian Mafia and, in particular, Sicilian Mafia. There is a second order of considerations: these demonstrations in defense of the good name of Italians were organized by a newspaper[9] whose owners and editors pleaded guilty of what they called a “technical violation,” but that the law actually calls fraud. The frauds (plural), perpetrated against the company’s stock holders and the municipality of New York, totaled one million dollars. Nobody in the Italian American community wants to mention these facts. Of course the less this is discussed the better, but, in exchange, that newspaper should stay out of endorsing this campaign for the “good name of Italians.” There are many of us of Italian origin who live happily in America without the need for a newspaper to defend our good name.

The Italian-language newspaper that instigated the demonstrations found itself on the same side of the boss[10] of a union organization active in the infamous New York harbor. His name is very well known because his brother was killed in a barber shop downtown New York; and everybody presumes the reason of the killing was related to internal affairs of organized crime. Now, isn’t it a bit preposterous to ask for support from the American public opinion with champions like this?

If the organizers of the protest had been model citizens, one could respond to Crosby that, although what he said is accurate, he did not mention many of the circumstances and responsibilities at the root of Italian and Sicilian criminality. First of all, these criminals with Italian names were not educated in Italy but in the United States; second, the nature of their organization is typically American and not Italian; and, finally, this is not a provincial enterprise: it is industrial. Before Al Capone and other Italian Americans like him, there were dozens of criminal gangs in America whose bosses had Anglo-Saxon names or names of other ethnic groups. Moreover, the American public could have chosen not to support criminals by avoiding buying alcohol during Prohibition; or by not using prostitutes after the bordellos were closed by law; or by not gambling illegally. Without the support of Americans, Italian criminals would not have survived. American society needed them: that’s all. These people risked their lives or years in prison and operated with great skill in order to give the public the services and goods society had hypocritically prohibited.

One last thing remains to be said. When these Italians, or their parents, came to the United States, they were not treated with white gloves, as now happens to Puerto Ricans, for example. They were welcomed in America with the hugs of bosses that wanted to suffocate them. They got help by bankers who robbed them. They received no protection from laws they didn’t know existed and didn’t understand. The strongest ones among them understood that they had to take matters into their own hands. It’s remarkable that only such a small number became criminals.

This is what one should reply to Crosby, if only the dialogue had not been spoiled by those who do not have the stature to engage in it.

New York, April 9, 1961