Periodically,. violent methods were used to control the newcomerspo!itical �ovements constituted to oppose them, p!!5-losophical ideol�ogies devised to dehumanize them, andlegislation enacted to excbidethem.
A good example of this is seen in gangs of New York, both the book and the movie, where any type of immigrant (although in this case, specifically Irish) were heavily discriminated against.
The idealizedrendering of American social history suggests that thenewcomers. achieved this remarkable transition. to middle-class statusvia the Horatio Alger route.
I think it's intriguing that they call out the idealized version of the American social history, as we know that many immigrants who came to American (depending on the specific time period) were often in the lower classes and very poor, not necessarily middle class. This gap in where they are and where they were promised to be likely was the main reasoning for why many of them adopted the gangster lifestyle.
The corrupt political structures of the major American cit ies andorganized crime have always enjoyed a symbiotic relations hip inwhich success in one is dependent on the right connections in theother. 1
I think the use of the term "symbiotic relationship" really reframes how we view political corruptions when it comes to gangs/mob influence. Oftentimes it can look like one group is benefiting more than the other, or maybe it is mutual. I am interested to know what this looks like in the modern-day political climate where gangs have evolved in their calculations when it comes to politicians.
By the time Prohibition went into effect, 16 January 1920,other street-gang teen-agers were coming of age to make themselves aname in organized crime: Meyer Lan
I think it's incredibly interesting that most of the organized crime that built the gangster character that we know of today started with men of a very young age. Most of the famous depictions of gangster life have the characters being a bit older-- the seasoned mob boss kind of character-- but it makes sense that in actuality, the adaptation that was needed to survive with this lifestyle came from a younger audience.