by B. » Mon Feb 28, 2022 8:18 pm
I am glad you're pushing on this, as it makes me think about it and you know I need no excuse to go off.
- No clue what the earliest recruitment practices were like, but from what's available it looks like blood/marriage formed the nucleus and those members formed relationships based on general association, which expanded the network to include non-relatives. Those non-relatives could be inducted (though they or their children might intermarry with other members), bring their own friends/associates in and membership could get further removed from the nucleus though in Sicily it doesn't look like they ever strayed too far.
- What makes Sicily significant is everyone in the village would be compaesani so virtually the entire membership of a Sicilian Family would be either related or paesani with few exceptions. Go to the early US, we can see early recruitment was heavily based around relation or specific sets of Sicilian villages which makes sense given that's how the Sicilian mafia formed its membership/associations, but an early aspect of Americanization is that men from different villages/regions now comprised one Family which you wouldn't see in Sicily to a significant degree. These guys formed a greater range of relationships because their Family was no longer based in one Sicilian village/district/region and this sped up the changes we see later.
- You can look at the Bonanno Family as a good example of how a Family gets modernized. The majority of the Family were either interrelated and/or from specific sets of Sicilian towns. Carmine Galante was from one of those towns (likely related to older figures as well, though we don't know for sure) and recruited heavily from the local criminal element. We can see a majority of non-Sicilian or even non-Trapanese/Agrigentino Bonanno members on that 1963 chart have roots in the Galante crew, but his crew is exceptional when we look at the chart. Those guys then brought in their own associates who were even further removed from the nucleus and you end up with Joe Massino bringing in his people.
- Contrast that with the Asaro group. 5 generations of direct father>son membership and many other relatives. Vinny Asaro was a prolific criminal who ran with Jimmy Burke and the Gottis, but showed a heavy preference for bringing in his relatives. Gene Borello complained about Asaro bringing in his nephew who he felt was less tough than him, but that's just one example of the Asaros preferring to induct from their clan even though they had a big range of criminal associates. The Asaros are Americans but they've stuck to the approach of their ancestors.
- Smaller Families around the US stuck to the Sicilian model much more closely. Their membership stayed small, interrelated, and from specific towns, operating more like Sicilian Families. This was not sustainable in the US, but we can see it does work for certain factions of larger Families that did sustain themselves.
- We don't know if the early Sicilian mafia had explicit rules excluding certain people. In Sicily they would have recruited overwhelmingly from relatives/paesan by default. We do know they had preferences and sources on the early US show they had strong guidelines if not rules -- a source said early members had to be Sicilian-born and changed this to allow American-born Sicilians, later expanding to include non-Sicilians. Morello said a proposed member's compaesani had to be contacted in the early 1900s. There is no evidence the mafia came to the US and immediately opened its doors/ranks to everyone but we don't know how strict the rules/guidelines were.
- We have non-Sicilian Genovese leaders talking among themselves about how blood/marriage formed the early membership and specifically the leadership as well. It's not just that members had this perception, it's that data supports it. It's why I have reservations about someone being called a boss by early LE/newspapers just because of perceived criminal authority. The politics included crime but weren't oriented around a single criminal operation.
I am glad you're pushing on this, as it makes me think about it and you know I need no excuse to go off.
- No clue what the earliest recruitment practices were like, but from what's available it looks like blood/marriage formed the nucleus and those members formed relationships based on general association, which expanded the network to include non-relatives. Those non-relatives could be inducted (though they or their children might intermarry with other members), bring their own friends/associates in and membership could get further removed from the nucleus though in Sicily it doesn't look like they ever strayed too far.
- What makes Sicily significant is everyone in the village would be compaesani so virtually the entire membership of a Sicilian Family would be either related or paesani with few exceptions. Go to the early US, we can see early recruitment was heavily based around relation or specific sets of Sicilian villages which makes sense given that's how the Sicilian mafia formed its membership/associations, but an early aspect of Americanization is that men from different villages/regions now comprised one Family which you wouldn't see in Sicily to a significant degree. These guys formed a greater range of relationships because their Family was no longer based in one Sicilian village/district/region and this sped up the changes we see later.
- You can look at the Bonanno Family as a good example of how a Family gets modernized. The majority of the Family were either interrelated and/or from specific sets of Sicilian towns. Carmine Galante was from one of those towns (likely related to older figures as well, though we don't know for sure) and recruited heavily from the local criminal element. We can see a majority of non-Sicilian or even non-Trapanese/Agrigentino Bonanno members on that 1963 chart have roots in the Galante crew, but his crew is exceptional when we look at the chart. Those guys then brought in their own associates who were even further removed from the nucleus and you end up with Joe Massino bringing in his people.
- Contrast that with the Asaro group. 5 generations of direct father>son membership and many other relatives. Vinny Asaro was a prolific criminal who ran with Jimmy Burke and the Gottis, but showed a heavy preference for bringing in his relatives. Gene Borello complained about Asaro bringing in his nephew who he felt was less tough than him, but that's just one example of the Asaros preferring to induct from their clan even though they had a big range of criminal associates. The Asaros are Americans but they've stuck to the approach of their ancestors.
- Smaller Families around the US stuck to the Sicilian model much more closely. Their membership stayed small, interrelated, and from specific towns, operating more like Sicilian Families. This was not sustainable in the US, but we can see it does work for certain factions of larger Families that did sustain themselves.
- We don't know if the early Sicilian mafia had explicit rules excluding certain people. In Sicily they would have recruited overwhelmingly from relatives/paesan by default. We do know they had preferences and sources on the early US show they had strong guidelines if not rules -- a source said early members had to be Sicilian-born and changed this to allow American-born Sicilians, later expanding to include non-Sicilians. Morello said a proposed member's compaesani had to be contacted in the early 1900s. There is no evidence the mafia came to the US and immediately opened its doors/ranks to everyone but we don't know how strict the rules/guidelines were.
- We have non-Sicilian Genovese leaders talking among themselves about how blood/marriage formed the early membership and specifically the leadership as well. It's not just that members had this perception, it's that data supports it. It's why I have reservations about someone being called a boss by early LE/newspapers just because of perceived criminal authority. The politics included crime but weren't oriented around a single criminal operation.