Understanding the unique genesis of organized crime in the United States through the lens of second-wave immigration
Introduction
Within the slums of urban America, consisting of cramped tenement buildings and poor sanitation, consisted of some of the most profitable and dangerous crime syndicates of the early 20th century. These syndicates mainly consisted and formed around foreign communities such as that of the Chinese and Italians – as second-wave immigration was in full swing. Seeing millions of people from Europe and Asia pass through entry points such as Ellis Island in New York and Lee Island in California – dispersing across the United States. Typically formed tight-knit ethnic enclaves wherever they settled, with almost every major American city having both a “Little Italy” and “Chinatown.”
The question arises, however, how and why did these ethnic enclaves form, and how did they help form the crime syndicates of their respective culture, such as the Mafia in the Italian community and the Tongs in the Chinese communities? These syndicates were unique in the sense of organizations of other nations that typically had historical and cultural roots in their respective nation, such as that of the Japanese Yakuza, who operated out of Japan and worked with the Japanese government as far back as the 15th century¹. Alternatively, the Triads and Tongs of mainland China, whose original founding was based on political means to overthrow the Ch’ing Dynasty and restore the Ming Dynasty².
Crime syndicates in America faced a different genesis; however, they formed out of survival due to discrimination and alienation from the natives of the land. This discrimination from the colonial Americans arose as they saw immigration as a threat to their national identity; as the scholar Theodao states, “Throughout U.S. history, there are identifiable periods during which the nation’s self-conscious attempt at sustaining a coherent narration of the American identity is more readily visible than others. The politically and socially tumultuous years between 1880 and 1920, when the nation experienced what is now known as the “Second Wave” of U.S. immigration, is one such historical period³.” This influx of immigrants to the U.S. did not leave the culture of their motherland on the boat; instead, they brought it with them and preserved it in tradition and cross-continental relationships back home. These relationships sprouted many different movements, organizations, and concepts to the foreground of the U.S..
This paper will explore the roots of U.S. organized crime and how immigration played a unique and vital role in the establishment and existence of these groups, as contrasted with other organized crime from other nations. This will be explored by first analyzing waves of immigration to the U.S. and the early roots of organized crime, and secondly exploring how these groups interacted with people inside and outside the U.S.
Immigration and the Formation of Ethnic Enclaves
The Great Migration and Urban Concentration
During the 19th and 20th centuries, the U.S. industry experienced unprecedented economic and industrial success. These economic successes caused both a need for labor in the U.S. while simultaneously displacing smaller industries outside of the U.S. This influx of displaced labor outside of the U.S. and Western Europe and a need for labor inside the U.S. and Western Europe caused a mass influx of people to immigrate to said countries. Most of these people came from Southern and Eastern Europe and Ireland, landing along ports along the West Coast and East Coast. The majority of the immigrants stayed along the East Coast as it was a port of entry and heavily urbanized, which allowed for cheap living and access to labor. This new immigration saw demographic changes in the U.S., such as the city of Boston doubling in population at the time, and 40% of this new population consisted of immigrants, mainly Italians and Irish⁴.
The Divide: Assimilation vs. Otherness
With this large influx of people coming to the U.S., animosity, and tension came along with the demographic change. Some ethnic groups assimilated quicker than others, such as the Irish, who already spoke English and were part of the Anglosphere, encompassing early America. This allowed the Irish to get jobs in the government and civil services⁵. Thus, these circumstances grounded the Irish in U.S. culture and identity. At the same time, others did not assimilate as quickly. This lack of assimilation led to adversarial and otherness in the U.S., which can be observable in laws such as the Chinese Exclusion Act, where the United States passed laws prohibiting Chinese migrants from entering the country⁶. One American Politician, James A Johnson, stated: “that the white man is superior to the Chinaman; that our country would be better off people entirely with our own kind than if mixed with an inferior and degraded race⁷.” Highlighting views of the Chinese in the United States of the time as they viewed Chinese as inferior to the White majority of the U.S.
Anti-Italian Sentiment and Discrimination
The Italians also faced discrimination when coming to the United States; by 1903, there were about 1,200,000 Italians in the United States, 12% of whom lived in the ghettos of the urban New York City area referred to as “Little Italy⁸.” Many experienced discrimination from the Anglo-American population; John Fiske, an American historian of the 19th century, stated during his travels in Italy, “The lowest Irish are far above the level of these creatures (Italians)⁹.” While Ralph Waldo Emerson described Italian immigration as tainting of “the light complexion, the blue eyes of Europe¹⁰.”, one prominent construction leader in California went as far as stating, “You don’t call… an Italian a white man… an Italian is a Dago¹¹.” Emerson’s statement conceptualizes American views of Italians as non-white at the time, showing an adversarial relationship between the predominantly White Anglo population of the U.S. and the new Italian and Chinese immigrants.
The Formation of Protective Enclaves
Chinese-American populations also formed Chinatowns in urban spaces: “They left small towns and rural areas and established Chinatowns in large urban areas, usually in depressed inner city areas. They were forced to retreat to their own social and spatial world, where immigrants lived, worked, and sought to protect themselves from discrimination in the host society¹².” This demonstrates both the need for cultural preservation and the necessity to stick together for protection and safety. An article further expounded on this, stating, “Due to a lack of social assimilation on the part of the youths, they have been unable to make a decent living in this country and have therefore resorted to crime¹³.” The lack of social assimilation in question is in both culture and language. The Chinese saw it more beneficial to stick together and form their communities rather than assimilate into the United States.
The Inevitability of Criminal Enterprise
The challenges posed by Second-wave immigration to the United States’ identity fueled hostility, leading to a sense of otherness among immigrants and resulting in adversarial relationships. This hostility leads to a feeling of otherness, which ostracizes the people immigrating to the U.S., which makes an adversarial relationship. These ethnic groups (Italian and Chinese) would group, forming ethnic enclaves out of necessity and survival. Most urban hubs have both Chinatowns and Little Italy’s. Italians seeking safety and community as described: “They poured into the ghettos of New York City, the “Little Italy’s” of Cleveland, New Orleans, Chicago and San Francisco, and found shelter and companionship in the company of their fellow townsmen, campanilismo¹⁴.” The term “campanilismo,” which translates to “localism,” demonstrates a connection to the old world, which they kept in the form of language and a desire to keep to themselves.
The forcing of these people into urban areas and alienation among the public led to the formation of crime rings among these communities, as Veronesi states, “Pushed together in the squalor of the urban ghettos such as Mulberry Bend in New York, or the North End in Boston or the West Side near Hull House in Chicago, some manifestations of crime were inevitable in tenement environment¹⁵.” Highlighting how these living conditions led to the inevitable rise of crime in urban areas. The Chinese faced similar conditions. The University of Oregon Library, Women’s Studies Archive, details, “On the other hand, many who have wanted to leave the crowded conditions of the inner-city have found barriers of discrimination raised against them and encountered unpleasant experiences in other parts of the city and so they also have remained in Chinatown¹⁶.” It shows how the Chinese are being motivated by other communities that rejected them to live in the slums of the inner city.
Economic Marginalization and Desperation
The rejection of the Chinese and Italians did not just manifest in housing and public opinion; it also took shape in hiring discrimination. As spoken briefly about earlier, the Chinese Exclusion Act “To address these rising social tensions, from the 1850s through the 1870s the California state government passed a series of measures aimed at Chinese residents, ranging from requiring special licenses for Chinese businesses or workers to preventing naturalization¹⁷.” The law targeting Chinese labor, which they saw as a threat to American labor, affected their income, as the University of Oregon Library, Women’s Studies Archive, details: “The median income of Chinese is somewhat below the median for the population as a whole. Chinese persons do encounter discrimination in employment policies and are frequently employed in less well-paying occupations¹⁸.” With the Chinese being placed into slums and forced to take low-paying jobs, forcing the Chinese to resort to more drastic and illegal means in order to make a living.
Otherness and Outside Influence of the Mafia and Triads
The Birth of American Organized Crime
The poverty, violence, and discrimination the Chinese and Italians experienced in the urban Americas during the 19th and 20th centuries, with little to no job opportunities and racial violence and animosity, helped form the Chinese Triads and the Italian Mafia. They were formed on ethnic and historical grounds, relying on their community to operate. Most people in these communities did not participate in organized crime, but the structure of these communities being alienated from the host country helped promulgate organized crime operations. With language and loyalty (ex: campanilismo), it was hard for Americans to penetrate these communities and law enforcement to operate and bust the rings. This alienation as a form of organized crime necessitated a transnational operation, which will be discussed in the following section.
The Code of Omertà and Cultural Protection
These crime syndicates of the respective enclaves act beyond just the group’s direct members. The omerta is a code of honor among mafia members and Italians alike. Paul Hofman discusses this code of honor in his article, stating, “Omertà that has always decreed that whenever a mafia killing occurs, even in a crowded marketplace, anyone who happens to have witnessed it, including the dead man’s widow and children, will stonily say “I didn’t see anything. I heard shots and ducked in a doorway¹⁹.” This omerta demonstrates a connection to the old way of life that the Italians brought with them when coming to the U.S. and the use of otherness they utilized in order to cover up crimes. These customs arose due to social conditions presented in a hostile foreign nation as a necessity, as the conditions forced the community to act semi-autonomously to survive.
Transnational Connections and Government Involvement
With a brief understanding of how these ethnic enclaves operated regarding organized crime and cultural preservation due to otherness, one can see how these enclaves extended beyond their borders back to their home country—providing a vital pipeline for these groups to operate.
With the Chinese, we can see the connection of the Tongs back to China as Chinese officials helped negotiate a peace treaty between warring Tong gangs in the United States. “Ta-Kwang Wu, Second Secretary of the Chinese Legation there, and J.S. Tow, Acting Consul General in this city, informed the prosecutor that a permanent peace compact would be signed at 2 o’clock this afternoon in the consulate at 13 Astor Place²⁰.” Highlighting the role the Chinese government and influence still played within Chinatowns and the culture within these enclaves in the United States.
Conclusion: A Uniquely American Phenomenon
Second-wave immigration played a vital role in how ethnic communities formed and how these communities operated. Typically being congregated in poor urban areas where racial tensions were high, people came to the U.S. looking for community and safety, which the government was not offering, thus creating Chinatowns and Little Italy. Within these communities, people also formed crime organizations that depended on the unity and cooperation of these ethnic enclaves to operate and connect back to the lands in which they had originated.
These syndicates were unique to the United States and Western Europe as most other organized crime groups outside of said countries operated on a historical and cultural grounding that gave them legitimacy to the people with whom they interacted, such as the Yakuza, who dated as far back to the 15th century and have deep connections to the Japanese government. This system was implemented in the U.S. but on a micro level within these enclaves as a somewhat “necessary evil” in order to protect themselves and thrive in the hostile United States as otherness forced them to depend on and interact with each other and look for external resources to operate and find means of which to profit.
These organized crime groups also acted as an identity for these enclaves, as many of the structures and cultures they adopted were those they brought from their native country, from the “campanilismo” culture that the mob provided to the historical and political identity the Tongs brought, giving the people within these enclaves a feeling of their native country and providing a social safety net that gave these groups more legitimacy to operate within a nation that was rejecting them.
References
¹ Eiko Maruko Siniawer, “Befitting Bedfellows: Yakuza and the State in Modern Japan,” Journal of Social History 45, no. 3 (2012): 623–41.
² T. Wing Lo, “BEYOND SOCIAL CAPITAL: Triad Organized Crime in Hong Kong and China,” The British Journal of Criminology 50, no. 5 (2010): 851–72.
³ C. Kendall Theado, “Narrating a Nation: Second Wave Immigration, Literacy, and the Framing of the American Identity,” JAC 33, no. 1/2 (2013): 11–39.
⁴ College, Boston, “Second Wave, 1880-1920,” Global Boston
⁵ James R. Barrett and David R. Roediger, “The Irish and the ‘Americanization’ of the ‘New Immigrants’ in the Streets and in the Churches of the Urban United States, 1900-1930,” Journal of American Ethnic History 24, no. 4 (2005): 3–33.
⁶ Joyce J. Chen, “The Impact of Skill-Based Immigration Restrictions: The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882,” Journal of Human Capital 9, no. 3 (2015): 298–328.
⁷ Wenxian Zhang, “Standing Up Against Racial Discrimination: Progressive Americans and the Chinese Exclusion Act in the Late Nineteenth Century,” Phylon (1960-) 56, no. 1 (2019): 8–32.
⁸ Gene P. Veronesi, “Italian Americans and Their Communities of Cleveland,” (Cleveland State University, 1977).
⁹⁻¹¹ Ibid
¹² Wei Li, “Beyond Chinatown, beyond Enclave: Reconceptualizing Contemporary Chinese Settlements in the United States,” GeoJournal 64, no. 1 (2005): 31–40.
¹³ Special to The New York Times, “Bulletin Linking Tongs to Crime Brings Coast Official’s Apology: Tongs Called Active,” New York Times (1923-), November 25, 1973.
¹⁴⁻¹⁵ Gene P. Veronesi, “Italian Americans and Their Communities of Cleveland,” (Cleveland State University, 1977).
¹⁶⁻¹⁸ “Social Service Needs of the Chinese in the U.S.” n.d. T.S. Box 2, Folder21, Women’s Lives: The Ruth A. Gress Papers, 1939-1966. University of Oregon Library. Women’s Studies Archive.
¹⁷ U.S. Department of State. “Chinese Immigration (1866-1898).” Milestones: 1866-1898.
¹⁹ Paul Hofmann, “ITALY GETS TOUGH WITH THE MAFIA: IN SICILY ITSELF, PEOPLE ARE BEGINNING TO DARE CHALLENGE ‘THE HONORABLE SOCIETY.’ THE FIGHT MAY TAKE DECADES. ITALY GETS TOUGH WITH THE MAFIA IN SICILY ITSELF, PEOPLE ARE BEGINNING TO DARE CHALLENGE ‘THE HONORABLE SOCIETY.’ THE FIGHT MAY TAKE DECADES. MAFIA MAFIA,” New York Times (1923-), November 13, 1983.
²⁰ “TONGS AGREE TO SIGN PEACE TREATY TODAY: PROMISE MADE TO END KILLING AFTER CRAIN AND MULROONEY THREATEN DEPORTATIONS, CHINESE OFFICIALS AID MINISTER WU’S SECRETARY AND ACTING CONSUL CONFER WITH CHINATOWN LEADERS. TONGS TO USE GREAT SEALS COMPACT TO SET A PRECEDENT–TWO HELD IN BAIL AFTER AMBUSH SHOOTING IN PELL STREET. TONGS TO AFFIX THEIR SEALS. TWO ARRAIGNED IN SHOOTING.” New York Times (1923-), Aug 19, 1930.
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