Chicago Outfit Places of Origin

[B.]

The Arbereshe mafiosi affiliated w/ the early LA Family were apparently even called Albanesi by other Sicilians.

When this has come up before we've wondered whether Arbereshe were seen as suitable for mafia membership from the beginning (regardless of ethnic roots, their geography and temperament lended itself to the mafia) or if their membership came a bit later than other western Sicilians given they were still seen as Albanese. That brings up other Sicilians who trace themselves to other places in Italy, etc. though. Maybe anyone living in Sicily for enough generations was seen as Sicilian enough for the mafia regardless of their older ancestry.

[PolackTony]

The Arbereshe mafiosi affiliated w/ the early LA Family were apparently even called Albanesi by other Sicilians.

When this has come up before we've wondered whether Arbereshe were seen as suitable for mafia membership from the beginning (regardless of ethnic roots, their geography and temperament lended itself to the mafia) or if their membership came a bit later than other western Sicilians given they were still seen as Albanese. That brings up other Sicilians who trace themselves to other places in Italy, etc. though. Maybe anyone living in Sicily for enough generations was seen as Sicilian enough for the mafia regardless of their older ancestry.

We've discussed some of these questions a bit before, both on the board and off.

The Arbëreshë of Sicily are an ethnic/linguistic minority; they were seen as such both by themselves and other Sicilians, and this difference was much more marked and salient in the past than it is today. But, by the late 19th century at least, they were not viewed as *foreign* to Sicily in any meaningful way, as they had, of course, been there for 4 centuries by this point. From what I know, the Arbëreshë were seen by other Sicilians as somewhat exotic, curious, and strange. And until the late 19th century, endogamy was the norm among them, as they strongly preferred to remain among their own people and traditions. But they weren't excluded socially in any way by other Sicilians, so far as I am aware. Rather than a foreign population on Sicilian soil, they were seen by the broader society as an *internal other*.

As I've noted before, we also know that understandings of the Arbëreshë as ethno-cultural "others" within the broader Sicilian immigrant population did carry on into the early 20th-century US diaspora, as should be expected. It was documented that other Sicilians in CHicago's Little Sicily, for example, referred to the Arbëreshë of Mezzojuso as "Gai Gai", a term which may not have carried any pejorative or hostile connotations, but certainly served to mark the Arbëreshë as distinct from the broader Sicilian community, with their language as the salient marker of ethnic difference (the etymology is unclear; while "Gai Gai" may have been nonsensical vocables meant to underscore the incomprehensibility of the Arbëreshë language, I suspect that it was actually derived from gjuha Arbëreshë/jonë, Arbëreshë terms for "Arbëreshë language/our language"). I've also noted oral history accounts from the Sicilian community in Madison, WI, that demonstrate that even into the 2nd generation, it was still somewhat controversial or noteworthy for a "Sicilian" to marry an "Albanian". Not like people were getting disowned or killed over this, but more just a cause for a small bit of scandal among the older members of the community, clearly an echo of longstanding though rapidly eroding taboos/anxiety around exogamy of Arbëreshë.

The assimilation of the Arbëreshë into the dominant Sicilian culture began to accelerate a bit in the decades after the Risorgimento, as, obviously, the unification of Italy -- and the reactions against domination by the Italian North in the years afterwards -- had profound impacts on Sicilian identiyy and society. Mixed marriages, while still quite rare, became a bit more common in the late 19th century. But it's important I think to view this from the POV of the Arbëreshë themselves, as intermarriage with outsiders was an existential threat to the viability of their communities as such.

Important to underscore here that -- apart from actual kinship networks and the structures of community in their settlements -- the axes of ethnic difference and identity for the Arbëreshë vis-à-vis other Sicilians are the church and language. Until the 20th century, Arbëreshë was the common tongue of the Arbëreshë people among themselves; this was a totally oral, vernacular, language, not taught in schools and not a literary language. Hence, in interacting with the outside world, Arbëreshë would adopt Sicilian (for colloquial use) and Italian (for more formal uses, as in interacting with the state, schools). Thus, by the early 20th century, the decline of the Arbëreshë language in Sicily was already well underway. The church was much more resistant to dissolution, of course. Not only were the Arbëreshë adherents of a church that used the Greek language Byzantine rite liturgy -- run by Arbëreshë-speaking clergy -- the calendar of the Byzantine rite structured their community life, serving to mark them off as a world-within-a-world within Sicily. Marrying an outsider would thus entail abandoning an entire interconnected set of traditions and relationships, deeply embedded in the community and familial networks, centered on the church, as essentially no outsiders were going to be converting over to the Byzantine rite church. So if an Arbëreshë married a non-Arbëreshë, the marriage would be officiated by a Latin rite priest, their kids baptized under the Latin rite; holidays and saint festivals according to the Latin rite. It would essentially entail a real severance and alienation from their ancestral communities and assimilation to the dominant Sicilian society. For these reasons, I would presume that taboos around outmarriage were likely much more intense on the Arbëreshë side of the equation, serving to preserve the integrity and viability of their socio-cultural microworld, rather than mainly a question of hostility or suspicion from non-Arbëreshë.

In diaspora, while cultural understandings of Arbëreshë ethnic distinction were of course carried over to the US, the axes through which these were reproduced were rapidly eroded. The decline of the Arbëreshë language would have been greatly accelerated, as obviously, outside of the home and some compaesani societies and such, Arbëreshë migrants and their children were immersed in a world where Italian and English were the dominant languages (with Arbëreshë playing 4th fiddle to these and Sicilian "dialect"). Perhaps even more critically, there were no Arbëreshë Byzantine rite churches in the US. Thus, the Arbëreshë had to attend Latin rite churches alongside other Sicilians/Italians. In so doing, the primary barrier demarcating Arbëreshë ethnic difference was removed, and one can see how this would have greatly facilitated intermarriage, despite any residual cultural misgivings carried over from back home. Within a generation or two, for the most part, the Arbëreshë in diaspora went from a distinct and insular ethnic minority to being subsumed as "Sicilians", and subsequently "Italian-Americans". Later "second wave" migrants of Arbëreshë descent arriving in the US would also have done little to re-Albanianize their Americanized paesani either, as these people were by then arriving from a greatly changed Sicily, where mass education, advances in literacy, and mass media had made Italian the increasingly dominant language across communities anyway.

Regarding the question of Arbëreshë in the early mafia, while I don't know that we have any sources in either the US or Sicily who specifically discussed the salience, or lack thereof, of their status as an ethnic minority with respect to mafia membership, I don't think there was ever any barrier to them joining the mafia. Worth noting here that Arbëreshë mafiosi back in Sicily would primarily have been members of Families based in their communities and composed of their co-ethnics anyway. I personally doubt that their membership in the early US mafia would have been seen as in any way problematic or controversial, as I think they were well-established in the mafia already back home since the late 19th century, at least. In that 1900 Cuntrera map that I referenced above, Arbëreshë communities such as PDG, Contessa Entellina, and Santa Cristina Gela were all recorded as having a known presence of mafia activity, while Mezzojuso, Palazzo Adriano, and Bronte were denoted as having a "high density" of mafia activity (unclear what the criteria were for this exactly, but Cutrera clearly saw these comuni as having a scale or intensity of mafia activity similar to places like Corleone, Bagheria, etc.). The clannish and insular nature of traditional Arbëreshë communities -- and their tendency towards communal self-government historically -- even as compared to Sicilians in general, leads me to suspect that their communities may well, in fact, have been some of the early nuclei of the mafia phenomenon in the 19th century.

[cavita]

Yes... Gai Gai. I forgot all about that. I remember growing up and hearing that the Arbereshe in Rockford had their own language and that they spoke "Gai Gai." My nonna was not from there but she learned enough of it that she could speak with them easily and it added to the mystique of people from there. I also believe that the Matranga family in Rockford was from there but haven't been able to trace it because they had come from Garyville, Louisiana after immigrating from Sicily.

[PolackTony]

Yes... Gai Gai. I forgot all about that. I remember growing up and hearing that the Arbereshe in Rockford had their own language and that they spoke "Gai Gai." My nonna was not from there but she learned enough of it that she could speak with them easily and it added to the mystique of people from there. I also believe that the Matranga family in Rockford was from there but haven't been able to trace it because they had come from Garyville, Louisiana after immigrating from Sicily.

Excellent post. So we know that the Arbëreshë were called "Gai Gai" by other Sicilians in both Chicago and Rockford (unsurprising given the close ties between Sicilians in both cities and the presence of some of the same compaesani groups). I wonder if this term only came into use in the diaspora or if it was already used in this way back in Sicily (if so, it presumably has long since become archaic).

Matranga is absolutely an ethnic Arbëreshë surname, so we can presume that they were in fact of Arbëreshë ancestry and likely from PDG, as that is where the surname originated and is mainly found (it is also found a bit today in neighboring comuni such as SGJ, but this may be due to 20th century assimilation and intermarriage of Arbëreshë).

[B.]

Agreed if it was a barrier it would have been short-term and very early on in the development of the mafia if a barrier existed at all. As you said, Arbereshe areas of Sicily were hotbeds of early mafia activity and by the time we have substantial mafia intel in the US there are Arbereshe with membership and even leader status.

I imagine comments that Arbereshe were Albanesi who spoke "Gai Gai" was a more pronounced version of remarks someone might make even about someone from a neighboring town that's otherwise virtually identical, i.e. a Castellammarese remarking "Oh the Alcamesi are different from us because they do XYZ." By the time the mafia is in full swing these distinctions may have been acknowledged but didn't have true significance, not unlike the eventual induction of mainlanders where a Sicilian might remark "Oh he's a Calabrese, he's stubborn and cooks his pasta different from us" but that's not the same as truly "othering" them.