Made Men

In the American Mafia, made man is a term for a fully initiated member of the Mafia.

Other common names for members include "man of honor" (Italian: uomo d'onore), "one of us", "good fella", and "wiseguy"; although the last two can also apply to non-initiated Mafia associates who work closely with the Mafia, rather than just official "made men." Earning or making one's "bones" or "button" or becoming a "button man" for the Mafia is usually synonymous with becoming a "made man."

Other street terms for being initiated into the Mafia include "being straightened out," "baptized," and earning one's "badge." "Soldato" (Italian for "soldier") is also usually synonymous with "made man," as one must generally be officially "made" in order to move from the rank of "associate" to the rank of "soldato." "The books are open" is a phrase used in the Mafia to indicate that a particular Mafia family is ready to accept new members; conversely, if a family is unwilling or unable to accept new members, the "books are closed." In Sicily, the proper term for a member of the Sicilian Mafia is in Italian "uomo d'onore", or in Sicilian "omu d'onuri". Mafioso is a common term used colloquially and by the press and academics, but it is generally not used by members of the Italian-American and Sicilian Mafia themselves.

Traditionally, in the Italian-American Mafia, in order to become a true made man, the inductee had to be a male of full Italian descent. For example, famous Lucchese family associate Henry Hill, portrayed in the 1990 film Goodfellas, was unable to become a made man even though his mother was of Sicilian descent, as Hill's father was of Irish descent. Today, it is believed that the Italian-American Mafia has loosened this requirement so that males of half-Italian descent through their father's line can also be inducted. According to Salvatore Vitale, it was decided during a Commission meeting in 2000 to restore the rule requiring both parents to be Italian; however, this rule was explicitly for the Five Families in New York City, and in practice the rule may be overlooked even in New York City in certain cases. Because an increased number of third- and fourth-generation Italian Americans have some non-Italian ancestry (due to the mixing of ethnic groups in the United States), having an Italian surname seems to have become the prerequisite for Mafia membership. Examples of made members who are not of full Italian descent include the son of Italian-American mobster John Gotti, John A. Gotti, whose maternal grandmother was of Russian descent; and Frank Salemme of the New England Patriarca crime family, whose mother was of Irish descent while his father was of Italian descent. In other cases, partially Italian-American associates have hidden their non-Italian heritage in order to become made men, as in the case of Scarfo crime family soldier and made man Andrew Thomas DelGiorno, who was of Polish and Italian descent but managed to conceal his Polish heritage on his mother's side and was therefore inducted into the Philadelphia Mafia. Some half-Italian associates of John Gotti that rose to a status close to that of a made man include Wilfred Johnson, half-Native American and half-Italian, though he was killed and consequently never inducted into the Mafia.

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Wikipedia