I'm sure this thread has been done before but nevertheless:

Greg Scarpa: Veneto
Sam Battaglia: Veneto

I'm sure theres more add to the list....

Anthony Senter (if indeed he was made)

Senter was made and got his non-Italian sounding surname from his family changing it to sound more American.

There aren't many American LCN guys of Northern Italian origins for several reasons:

1. Northern Italy had/has a much stronger economy than the South.

2. Northern Italians traditionally settled in California during the mass Italian immigration period to the United States, they generally did not settle in LCN hot beds like NY/NJ/Philly.

3. Northern Italians were discriminated against when they arrived in the United States obviously. However, I strongly suspect that they didn't face nearly as much discrimination as their southern Italian counterparts due to the fact that they had features like blonde hair, blue eyes, red hair, lighter skin, etc. ALL CATHOLICS were discriminated against though, look at the Irish.

I would have to respectfully disagree with Dante. Although the majority of Italian immigrants came from the south, MANY from the north settled in NY, NJ, PA areas. My parents people were from Genoa and Piedmont and they grew up in the Lower East Side of Manhattan with many families from that area. Many people from the area were connected and a small number were lcn. I now live in Philadelphia and there are two Italian clubs of northern origin. The Venetian Club and the Piemonte club. Agree the majority of the Italian immigrants on the east coast are southern but not all

Padrone-

Yes, I am Northern Italian myself (Veneto) and we settled in New Jersey from Italy. The point I was trying to make was that the MAJORITY of Italian immigrants in LCN cities were from the South, mainly Neopolitan, Sicilian, Calabrian, etc...

I am sorry that I wasn't clear with what I was trying to say, apologies. Also, below a link backing up my claim that a lot of Northern Italian immigrants ended up out west in California.

http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/collections/italianamericans/

No, I agree. When my great grandfather came he went out west to work on the railroads was injured and returned to Italy. It was only later that my grandfather came and settled in NY

Sorry got cut off from my previous post. I was just saying that the majority may have come from the south, but at the time of my grandparents coming many were from the north and settled in the north east but most were from the south

I live near a small town in central Illinois that has a good sized Italian American community. They came here in the early 1900s to work in the coal mines. Lots of Croatians too.

I believe that most (if not all) of these immigrants were of Northern Italian origin. As far as how this pertains to Italian organized crime I have not heard anybody speak of an organized crime culture in this area. Everybody here is a redneck for the most part these days; even the Italian Americans.

The point is: I don't think Northern Italians have the Mafia as part of their culture, unless it has been imported from the South.
Joe Bonanno said that even Albert Anastasia could never fully understand "men of my tradition" and Anastasia was Calabrese.
Imagine what he'd think of a made guy from Milan?!

http://www.gens.info/italia/it/turismo-viaggi-e-tradizioni-italia#.VMnQ8mjF-So

Try that link to see where Italian last names originate.

Gregory Scarpa Sr was born to first-generation immigrants from the impoverished village of Lorenzaga of Motta di Livenza near Venice, Italy.

Joey Doves what you say is right but it was only until there was the first generation of mobsters who spoke little English and we spoke to each other only in Sicily, but starting from the 50s with the second generations that only spoke in English and only a few words in the dialect, began to see if a person was able to kill,to keep his mouth shut and to be a good earner for the family, seeing only if the man is full-blooded (if both parents were Italian without worrying about which part of Italy were from)

His parents emigrated from Trentino-Alto Adige, it was their original lastname.



Not in the past it didn't.
The "economic boom" started not earlier than the late 1950s/early 1960s and even since then many areas in rural Veneto, rural Piemonte, mountainous Lombardy and Friuli still struggled (and unfortunately still do).

Even during the two decades of fascist regime, big cities aside (milan, turin), the countryside and remote valleys were poverty-stricken.

Out of all italian regions, Veneto is the one that lost most habitants in the past 150 yrs.



Northern Italians did generally settle throughout the north east, both in the US and Canada.
The early miners in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and West Virginia were Northern Italians. Not to mention seasonal workers in New England.
Of course they also settled in California (mostly), Oregon, Nevada as well as the Midwest, Texas and (the early birds) down south in Louisiana and the delta regions.

The thing with the atlantic seaboard is that they "mixed up" with the ever-growing number of southerns ... no doubt about that ... but saying that they traditionally didn't settle along the northeastern coast is simply inaccurate.
The reason why California comes to mind when talking about northerns is simply because the lower number of southerns (compared to the northeast) allowed them to remain ethnically distinct longer than their paesani living on the opposite coast.

Even here in michigan the early settlers were italians from Friuli Venezia Giulia who sneaked in from Canada.



don't fall for this long-debunked stereotype



very true

Thanks for your input guys, very interesting.

American Cosa Nostra originated from Sicilian origins but now has "expanded" to include members from all regions of Italy as long as their mother and father have Italian last names now.

Whats intriguing to me about that is: That is not a very discerning requirement for membership in the present day.

That means that a redneck from the town I live in in that has an Italian last named Mom and Dad can go to New York or Chicago and possibly become a made guy or even a boss. How crazy would that be: some dude with a mullet from a trailer park in Bellevue Illinois becomes boss of the Bonannos because he had an Italian American mom and dad?

"Larry Dean Giacobazzi became boss of the Gambinos today"...LOL

Yeah, I wouldn't worry too much about that happening. Not even with the Bonannos or Colombos .

Darn. I just had my dreams crushed. Thanks a lot, guys.

Skynrd blasting from the Italian American Social Club in the Bronx. LOL! OK I'll quit now.

Pinstriped overalls and red wing boots with spats!

Social Clubs are the local feed stores where the redneck wiseguys play checkers on barrels and gripe about the weather and crops.

Sweet Home . . . . Arthur Avenue.

I love that movie "Con Air," when those idiot inmates are singing "Sweet Home Alabama" as they take over the plane .

Define irony. Bunch of idiots dancing on a plane to a song made famous by a band that died in a plane crash...

Malkovich is a poet.