One thing I would love to hear more about was the situation between blacks, latinos, and Mafiosos in Los Angeles during the 1970s, when the blacks and latinos experienced a huge ascendancy. Does anybody know if there was that kind of a conflict in LA in the 70s or 80s? It would be fascinating to know how the drug trade in that area first came under Latino control in the 1970s.
Outside of the fictional account shown in the movie
American Me, no. California has always been, relatively speaking, foreign country to the Mafia, being far removed as it is from their traditional power base. Even back in the day the families in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Jose were small potatoes. By the 1980's the San Francisco and San Jose families were all but gone and LA was more or less a crew even by that point. And you had individual mafiosi from other families back east floating around California. But there was never enough presence to where they would be fighting with the black and Hispanic groups over territory.
