# Asian Americans in Italian Mafia **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 2, 2009, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-americans-in-italian-mafia/508650 "2009-09-02T16:54:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2009, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-americans-in-italian-mafia/508650/1 "2009-09-02T16:54:14Z")
Can Asian Americans join the Italian Mafia? ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2009, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-americans-in-italian-mafia/508650/2 "2009-09-02T16:57:41Z")
Are you looking for a new line of work? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2009, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-americans-in-italian-mafia/508650/3 "2009-09-02T17:17:09Z")
No. To be an “official” member of the Mafia you have to be of Italian ancestry. The Mafia has many non-Italian “associates” who work with/for them, but they are not regarded as actual Mafia members. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2009, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-americans-in-italian-mafia/508650/4 "2009-09-02T17:24:40Z")
I don’t know why Asian-Americans would join the Italian Mafia when they have their own organized crime groups that have far eclipsed the Italian Mafia in terms of their power and influence. ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2009, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-americans-in-italian-mafia/508650/5 "2009-09-02T17:47:17Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > No. To be an “official” member of the Mafia you have to be of Italian ancestry. The Mafia has many non-Italian “associates” who work with/for them, but they are not regarded as actual Mafia members. I believe the Italian ancestry requirement is restricted to the father’s side of the family. A Mafia member must also be Caucasian, which would seem to rule out the offspring of a father of Italian ancestry (albeit born in the US) and a mother of Asian origin, _i.e._ an Asian American as posited by the OP. So the answer is still negative. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2009, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-americans-in-italian-mafia/508650/6 "2009-09-02T17:54:58Z")
> [@Chez\_Guevara](#): > > I believe the Italian ancestry requirement is restricted to the father’s side of the family. Yes. [Henry Hill](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Hill) (the main character of _Wiseguy/GoodFellas_) was unable to become a full member because his father was Irish, even though his mother was Italian. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2009, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-americans-in-italian-mafia/508650/7 "2009-09-02T18:16:50Z")
Generally both parents have to be of Italian ancestry, although that’s not always true, which is probably one of the reasons that John Pappa was never made. ---
**Author:** ![Peanuthead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peanuthead/32/360_2.png) [@Peanuthead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peanuthead)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2009, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-americans-in-italian-mafia/508650/8 "2009-09-02T20:28:24Z")
\*\*Ken Eto \*\* aka Tokyo Joe was pretty high up in the ranks of the Chicago mob until they decided he was no longer useful to them and attempted a mob hit that went awry. He survived 5 bullets to the head (:eek:) and the 2 who botched the job wound up in the trunk of a Cadillac at O’hare airport. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2009, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-americans-in-italian-mafia/508650/9 "2009-09-02T20:40:51Z")
> [@Peanuthead](#): > > \*\*Ken Eto \*\* aka Tokyo Joe was pretty high up in the ranks of the Chicago mob until they decided he was no longer useful to them and attempted a mob hit that went awry. He survived 5 bullets to the head (:eek:) and the 2 who botched the job wound up in the trunk of a Cadillac at O’hare airport. There are plenty of non-Italians who work with the Mafia as associates, and some may reach important positions, but they are not “made men,” actual members of the Mafia itself. ---
**Author:** ![TheFifthYear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@TheFifthYear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheFifthYear)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2009, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-americans-in-italian-mafia/508650/10 "2009-09-02T23:09:11Z")
Well, if Wikipedia is to be believed, the Chicago Outfit did/does allow non-Italians. > [@](#): > > Unlike the “Five Families,” the Outfit has had other ethnic groups besides Italian Americans in its upper echelons since its earliest days. A prime example of this was the Jake Guzik (“Greasy Thumb”) who was the top “bagman” and “accountant” for decades until his death. He was Jewish and either Polish or Russian depending on the source. Another mobster was Japanese-American Ken Eto. More prominently was Murray Humphreys, who was of Welsh descent. > **[Chicago Outfit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Outfit)** > > The Chicago Outfit, also known as the Outfit, the Chicago Mafia, the Chicago Mob, the Chicago crime family, the South Side Gang or the Organization, is an Italian American Mafia crime family based in Chicago, Illinois, and throughout the Greater Chicago area, originating in the city's South Side in the early 1910s. > The Outfit rose to power in the 1920s under the control of Johnny Torrio and Al Capone, and the period was marked by bloody gang wars for control of the distribution of illegal alc... ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2009, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-americans-in-italian-mafia/508650/11 "2009-09-03T02:54:59Z")
> [@TheFifthYear](#): > > Well, if Wikipedia is to be believed, the Chicago Outfit did/does allow non-Italians. If you look at the lists at the end of the articles, Guzik, Eto, and Humphreys are all listed as “associates,” not as made men. Thus they were not full-fledged members of the Mafia. So the article actually bears out what I said. Even in the Chicago Outfit all the made men listed are Italian, including Jack McGurn, whose real last name was Gibaldi, and Richard Cain, who had an Italian mother (though he breaks the rule that the father must be Italian, since his father was Irish.) ---
**Author:** ![Lepke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e274bd/32.png) [@Lepke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lepke)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-americans-in-italian-mafia/508650/12 "2009-09-09T13:39:34Z")
Ken Eto was associated with the Chicago Outfit which does things differently than the New York families. The official bosses were 100% Italian but there were people like Ken Eto, Lenny Patrick, Gus Alex, Murry Humphreys etc. with a lot of clout in the Chicago Outfit. This would have never happened in New York or probably in other parts of the country. The Chicago people don’t do all of those traditional Mafia type rituals when they induct a new member that many of the other families do. In fact they don’t even call themselves Cosa Nostra. Eto was not part of the top hierchy, but he was in an influential position as far as gambling in the Hispanic and Chinese communities even though he was Japanese. The predominantly Italian Chicago Outfit did rule the local Chinese underworld which was controlled by the On Leong Tong. Ken Eto and a guy named Joe Wing were intermediaries between the Outfit and the On Leong. The Italians took a piece of the Chinatown gambling profits. In New York, the Italians since at least the 30s, took a piece of the narcotics rackets from two Chinatown tongs, the Hip Sing and the On Leong. The only time the Asian mob ever went against the the Italians was in San Francisco, but this was a rarity. [sueyhop@yahoo.com](mailto:sueyhop@yahoo.com)