Even Claude recognizes Lisa’s bullshit

This is a well-documented area of American criminology and history — historians call the broader pattern “ethnic succession” in organized crime, since each wave of urban immigrants produced a criminal fringe before assimilating into the mainstream economy. I’ll flag a caveat about that framing at the end.

Irish (1820s–1860s, NYC’s Five Points slum)
Gangs like the Dead Rabbits, Plug Uglies, Kerryonians, and Roach Guards formed among impoverished Irish Famine-era immigrants, often clashing with nativist gangs like the Bowery Boys (see Wikipedia: Battle of the Five Points). This lineage later produced the Five Points Gang (1890s–1920s), which under Paul Kelly trained future Italian and Jewish mob figures like Al Capone and Lucky Luciano — Wikipedia: Five Points Gang.

Chinese (1850s–1920s, San Francisco, NYC, and other Chinatowns)
“Tongs” — originally mutual-aid societies — splintered into criminal factions (Hip Sing, On Leong, Suey Sing, Kwong Duck) that fought decades-long “tong wars” over gambling, opium, and prostitution rackets, largely ending after the 1906 SF earthquake destroyed their revenue base — Britannica: Tong War.

Italian (1890s–1920s → American Mafia)
The “Black Hand” (La Mano Nera) was an extortion tactic — not a single organization — used by Sicilian and Italian immigrant gangsters in cities from New York to New Orleans, roughly 1890–1920 — Britannica: Black Hand. It gave rise to the more structured American Mafia / Cosa Nostra (the Five Families, Chicago Outfit).

Jewish (“Kosher Nostra,” 1890s–1940s)
Emerged in NYC’s Lower East Side — Monk Eastman’s gang, Arnold Rothstein, and later Murder, Inc. (Lepke Buchalter, Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky [and Minnesota’s Kid Cann]) — Wikipedia: Jewish-American organized crime. Murder, Inc. was the enforcement arm of the joint Italian-Jewish National Crime Syndicate from 1929–1941 — Wikipedia: Murder, Inc.. It’s the textbook case of ethnic succession: it largely dissolved as American Jews moved into the mainstream economy after WWII.

Puerto Rican (1954, Chicago)
The Latin Kings were founded in Humboldt Park by Puerto Rican immigrants, originally as a mutual-protection response to discrimination, before evolving into a large street/prison gang — Wikipedia: Latin Kings.

Mexican-American (1957, California prisons)
The Mexican Mafia (“La Eme”) formed at Deuel Vocational Institution, founded by Chicano inmates for mutual protection; it’s entirely a U.S. prison-born organization despite the name, and now oversees the Sureño street-gang network — Wikipedia: Mexican Mafia.

Salvadoran/Central American (1980s, Los Angeles)
MS-13 (Mara Salvatrucha) was formed by refugees of El Salvador’s civil war, initially for self-protection against established LA gangs like 18th Street — Britannica: MS-13.

Vietnamese (1980s, NYC Chinatown)
“Born to Kill” was founded by refugee David Thai, made up of Vietnamese youths marginalized by the existing Chinese-American gang structure — Wikipedia: Born to Kill.

Jamaican (1980s)
“Posses” (Shower Posse, Spangler Posse) originated as enforcers for rival Jamaican political parties, then became major U.S. crack-cocaine trafficking networks in New York, Miami, and Philadelphia — Wikipedia: Jamaican posse.

Russian/Soviet-Jewish (1970s–90s, Brighton Beach, Brooklyn)
Émigrés from the 1970s Soviet-Jewish emigration wave settled “Little Odessa,” where figures like Evsei Agron and Boris Nayfeld built extortion and fraud networks partnered with the Italian Mafia — RFE/RL; CrimeReads.

Cuban (1980, Miami)
A criminal minority among the roughly 125,000 “Marielitos” from the 1980 Mariel boatlift (Castro released some prisoners into the exodus) fed into Miami’s early-1980s cocaine-trade violence — Britannica: Mariel boatlift.

Irish, continued (1960s–1980s)
The Westies ran Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan, partnered with the Gambino family — Wikipedia: Westies — while the Winter Hill Gang under Whitey Bulger operated in Boston.

A misgiving worth flagging on the framing itself: the phrase “ethnic gangs” invites an “alien conspiracy” reading — that crime was imported by these groups rather than produced by American conditions. The scholarly consensus (and the DOJ’s own historical research on the Black Hand) pushes back on that: these gangs consistently arose from poverty, discrimination, and blocked economic mobility within the U.S., not from criminal traditions carried from the home country — see the DOJ/OJP research abstract on the Chicago Black Hand, which explicitly argues against the “alien conspiracy theory.” In every case above, the participants were a small criminal fringe of communities that were overwhelmingly law-abiding [emphasis added] — worth keeping explicit if this is headed toward publication, so the piece doesn’t read as implying pathology in the group as a whole.

– o O o –

One of my standing instructions to Claude is to flag any “misgivings” it may have about its responses, or even to the questions I ask. Charmingly, it usually has “misgivings.” Claude wanted to make sure I wouldn’t take its response to the question I asked as a wholesale indictment of entire immigrant ethnic groups.

Not me, Claude, but others? Oh, brother.

I can say without fear of contradiction that Claude gets it and Lisa and her howling claque don’t. I can also say without fear of contradiction that any of the above-named groups committed more fraud and criminality that Minnesota’s Somali community.

Claude’s words would sting Lisa Démuth and her fellow travelers if they were capable of being stung, or shame them if they were capable of shame. Alas, they aren’t, on either count.