Nothing has been so exasperating a burden on italian Americans over the past century as the sicilian italian mafia, and particularly the tendency for people to indiscriminately generalize its properties to all italian American s. It has also been a difficult phenomenon to deal with, for however defamatory and embarrassing the mafia has proven to be, italian Americans denying its existence or even its ubiquity, was at least equally embarrassing. That the traditional mafia is in a state of demise has reflected in several dimensions of viability of such organizations