November 11^th, 1918 was a day the world changed forever. The great war was over and the allies had won. Italian boys and men were coming home, what was supposed to be home, but it wasn’t the same as when they left. That is, if they made it back at all. The god damn socialists ran this country into the ground, Mussolini being the worst. When all was said and done they say a million Italian men had lost their lives, and for what? The socialists had promised that we would see a fair shake from the spoils of war, what we got was humiliation. Our government failed us, made us look weak. Inflation, poverty, unemployment, and homelessness were all abound.

What did this mean for those of La Costra Nostra? Most notable families had lost men, if they didn’t fight for their county then they lost their honor. Everything was up in the air but there wasn’t anything to grab. I was just a child at this time but from my memory there were two options.

The old timers wanted to stay and ride out the storm. Their pride for the homeland was strong. They wanted nothing more than to see Italy flourish. Today they would be known as nationalists but times were different then. There wasn’t enough food to go around let alone work for every man. Something had to change and the whole world knew what that meant.

America was the land of opportunity.

Not all families came over and some families were even slit in two. Most godfathers stayed in Italy which made for an interesting time in the early days. We had enough enemies, we didn’t need to fight each other as well. Families who had been at war for years were forced to ally. No one liked it but we did what we had to do. Families started to grow and form new alliances becoming less dependent on the Italian godfathers. Some families started to hire out of blood and recruited young men, we called this the first American Don.

As we know it now, we are all big time. Godfathers in America. We have men and women running entire cities, possibly more. We no longer need to get permission from the homeland anymore. We no longer need to send tribute to the homeland anymore. We no longer are birthing our families in the homeland anymore.

Do we even need the homeland anymore?