Thanks for filling in more of his contemporary Chicago info, Snakes. That is from the same guy. He is aware of the old Sicilian element and has ties to them, but it doesn't seem to have been a big factor in his later relationships from what we can see. Seems particularly close to Chucky Nicoletti.
Would be good to know who he says sponsored his relatives and who he says his own sponsor was. If his relatives were tied to the Genna faction and came from Sicily to help them as he seems to imply at one point, we might want to look at names from Trapani.
Antiliar -- thanks for correcting some of his info. Pretty typical to see mistakes from informants/witnesses when someone recalls old info, in this case as much as 40-50 years previous that may not have been seen/heard first or even secondhand.
PolackTony wrote: ↑Sun Dec 27, 2020 1:48 am
Another insight afforded by this informant's emic (i.e. "Insider's") perspective is that he uses "outfit" to refer to New York LCN also. The tendency, of course, as been to treat "outfit" as a proper name, using "The Outfit" without any qualifiers as referring the Chicago family. This points to another way that discussions on the US LCN assume a sort of extraordinary or marginal status for Chicago vis-a-vis the American Mafia more broadly. Of course we all know that the other Midwestern families also referred to themselves as "outfits". But again we see that "outfit" in Chicago is just a preferred synonym for the "Mafia", the "family", the "Life", "our people" -- all terms that other informants variabke invoke when referring to Chicago LCN. As this informant makes clear, "La Cosa Nostra" was recognized as a synonym for "the Outfit", just not in common use in Chicago. Rather than mark any fundamental, definitional distinction between the NYC and Chicago mob, here we get the perspective of a Chicago member who can casually refer to a Chicago guy as having "outfit connections in New York", just as we might refer to someone as a member of the "Chicago LCN". Same thing, different labels, slightly different perspectives from two parallel streams of Mafia evolution in the US.
Another good observation.
DeRose called the mafia "the Life", which is a common euphemism in NYC for the entire mafia subculture. Makes you wonder if it was a coincidence or if that phrase goes back deeper in mafia history than NYC and Chicago. The FBI capitalized it, but "the life" is a casual euphemism like "cosa nostra" originally was. The FBI capitalizes these in reports because they're distinct terms used by mafia insiders, but the way they're used in the mafia is not as a formal name but as substitutes for a formal name.
The thing is, even the members/associates themselves eventually start to think of these as formal terms. Just like members call themselves the Bonanno, Colombo, etc. families which is an LE designation, you have made members who call their organization "La Cosa Nostra".
Even "mafia" is not the formal name of it and shouldn't be capitalized. Joe Bonanno said the mafia is a process / mindset, not the name of the organization. It's hard for us to understand today, but before the 20th century "mafioso" may have been more of a euphemism, too. Calling someone a mafioso in the 20th century was a blunt statement that everyone understands, but I suspect earlier on it was once a euphemism like "wiseguy" or "button" that became so common it was no longer a euphemism.
Being "made" is another one. The mafia used to refer not just to inductions but also promotions this way. Seems to have been a filler term to refer to someone gaining status in the mafia. Nowadays "made member" is pretty much an official term, same with "button".
The important thing in mafia language is that people understand the meaning. We don't know what terminology they used when Frank Bompensiero asked Frank LaPorte whether he had lost his caporegime status, but it was understood by Bompensiero what position LaPorte held. If a member CI is introduced to someone as a "button guy", he can turn around and tell the FBI that this person is an "amico nostra", "friend of ours", "wiseguy", "made man", "member", "mafioso", or whatever term he wants to use and it all means the same thing.
Now, the FBI will ideally use the exact terms the informant used. This is why they use "the Life" in DeRose's cooperation, while they use terms like "Mafia" and "Mafia member" in this Chicago CI's reports. This is important, as it tells us what words were known and in use in a certain area. I have trouble believing that Frank Bompensiero told the FBI that Frank LaPorte was an "LCN Capo", but from other reports we know Bompensiero called caporegimes "capos", so that much appears to have been his own language.
The term "the life" showing up in two different cities reminds me of the phrase "piece of work" for murder. We see this all over the US spanning decades and everyone in and around the mafia uses it and knows what it means, but we have no idea when the mafia started using it. In the Giuseppe Morello letters CC posted, there is a segment where it sure sounds like he's talking about a murder plot and uses the same euphemism:
"In your letter you tell me that regarding Calogero Constantino there is nothing to say, but there should be exact information, because there are eight good workers sick to put the work on him and of the eight persons there are those in danger of their lives. But you must excuse me if I and others have not understood such language."
Looks like he's using "workers" and "work" the same way they do 110+ years later. And there's a Chicago connection, too, because this letter was written to Chicago boss Rosario Dispenza. Morello used those euphemisms knowing the Chicago boss would understand him. Makes me wonder if "the life" was a phrase readily understood even back then, too. I know DeRose was not a member, but I don't think he pulled it out of thin air.
