La Cosa Nostra essays

La Cosa Nostra essays Perhaps one of the most poignant moments in American cinema is the closing scene in the film The Godfather when Don Vito Corleones son Michael takes over his fathers position... and one of the most unforgettable moments, a severed horsess head lies bloody in a mans bed. It is this tradition and brutality that characterizes the Mafia, a secret Sicilian society that lives and functions just as much today on American soil as it did and does still in Italy. To understand this organized crime, one must begin to understand how it came to be organized in the first place. During the medieval times in Sicily, Arabs invaded the land and native Sicilians fled and took refuge in the hills. Some of these refugees formed a secret society that gave protection to the people in exchange for money. This group took their name, Mafia based on the Arabic word for refuge. In America today, one can hear it also be called La Cosa Nostra, or This Thing of Ours. In the 1700s,Wealthy people would receive a card with a black hand drawn on and if they did not pay the money, they could expect murder, theft, and violence. During the time Mussolini was ruling Italy, this secret society was under heavy persecution and many fled to the United States. Don (term for the boss or head of a Mafia family) Vito Cascio Ferro fled to the United States in 1901 to escape arrest. He is known as the Father of American Mafia. (La Cosa Nostra) Many Italian immigrants came to the United States through Ellis Island in New York, which is today the most important center of organized Mafia crime in the United States. The new American Mafia came to power during the Prohibition by organizing the sale of outlawed alcohol, but after Prohibition was revoked, the Mafia needed a new racket. During the war, the Mafia got government issued ration sta...