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The American Mafia, commonly known as the Mafia, Italian Mafia, Italian Mob, or the Mob in the United States, is an Italian American criminal society that originated and developed from the Sicilian Mafia. The Italian-American Mafia is a secret criminal society without a formal name, similar to the Sicilian Mafia. Its members usually refer to it as Cosa Nostra ((:kɔza nɔstra)), a phrase which literally translates to "our thing," but can be more accurately paraphrased as "our work" or "our operation." The press also coined the name "National Crime Syndicate" to refer to the entire network of U.S. organized crime, which included the Jewish Mafia elements and the Italian-American Mafia. It was described as a confederation of mainly Italian and Jewish-American organized crime groups throughout the U.S., as revealed by the findings of a U.S. Senate Special Committee in the 1950s chaired by Estes Kefauver. The Mafia in America emerged in Italian immigrant neighborhoods in New York's East Harlem (or Italian Harlem), Lower East Side, and Brooklyn. It also emerged in other areas of the East Coast of the United States and several other major metropolitan areas (such as New Orleans) during the late 19th century and early 20th Century following waves of Italian immigration, especially from Sicily and other regions of Southern Italy. It has its roots in the Sicilian Mafia, but is a separate organization in the United States. Neapolitan, Calabrian, and other Italian criminal groups in America, as well as independent Italian-American criminals, eventually merged with Sicilian mafiosi to create the modern pan-Italian Mafia in North America. Today, the American Mafia cooperates in various criminal activities with the Sicilian Mafia and other Italian organized crime groups, such as the Camorra in Naples, 'Ndrangheta in Calabria, and Sacra Corona Unita in Apulia. The most important unit of the American Mafia is that of a "family", as the various criminal organizations that make up the Mafia are known. Despite the name of "family" to describe the various units, they are not familial groupings.〔Roberto M. Dainotto(2015) The Mafia: A Cultural History pp.7-44 ISBN 9781780234434〕 The Mafia is currently most active in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, New England (primarily Boston and, to a lesser extent, Providence and Worcester, Massachusetts), Detroit, and Chicago; with smaller families, associates, and crews in places such as Florida, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Cleveland. There have been at least 26 cities around the United States with Cosa Nostra families, with many more offshoots, splinter groups, and associates in other cities. There are five main New York City Mafia families, known as the Five Families: the Gambino, Lucchese, Genovese, Bonanno, and Colombo families. At its peak, the Mafia dominated organized crime in the U.S. Each crime family operates independently, while nationwide coordination is provided by the Commission, which consists of the bosses of each of the strongest families. Today, most of the Mafia's activities are contained to the Northeastern United States and Chicago, where they continue to dominate organized crime, despite the increasing numbers of other crime groups.〔 name="Structure">〕〔https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=mafia+is+down+but+not+out〕 ==Usage of the term ''Mafia''== The term Mafia was originally used in Italy by the media and law enforcement to describe criminal groups in Sicily. The origins of the term are debatable though most agree the term is derived from the word "Ma'afir" a term rooted in Arabic and meaning 'shelter' or 'place of refuge'. Like the Sicilian Mafia, the American Mafia did not use the term "Mafia" to describe itself. Neither group has a formal name and instead used the term ''cosa nostra'' (Italian for ''our thing'') when referring to themselves. When Italian immigrants started forming organized crime groups in the United States, the American press borrowed the term Mafia from Italy and it became the predominant name used by law enforcement and the public. "Mafia" properly refers to either the Sicilian or American Mafia. In modern usage, when referring to the Mafia, there may be several meanings, including a local area's Italian organized crime element, the Mafia family of a major city, the entire Mafia of the United States, or the original Sicilian Mafia. Widespread recognition of the word has led to its use in the names of other criminal organizations, such as the Jewish Mafia, Mexican Mafia, or Russian Mafia, as well as non-criminal organizations, such as John F. Kennedy's political team, referred to as the "Irish Mafia" (not to be confused with the Irish Mob). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「American Mafia」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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