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• 1 media/goodfellas_poster.jpg 2018-05-04T06:35:20-07:00 Goodfellas 19 Looking at the connections of Irish and Italian gangsters. image_header 2018-05-07T04:41:50-07:00

  In the movie Goodfellas, we see several characters of Irish ancestry. The main character based on real life gangster was both Irish and Sicilian something that wasn't quite common for the time; because of this he was not able to become a made man in the mafia. A made man is someone who is an official member of the organization and has more benefits than members that are only at the associate level; it is common for the associates as well as soldiers to be of non-Italian ancestry. James Burke also called , was the real-life inspiration for James Conway an Irish gangster that worked his way up to being an soldier for the Lucchese crime family. Working his way from the bottom with minor theft jobs and becoming the go to hitman; however due to his ancestry he wouldn't be able move up the ranks. We also see this in the character of an African-American gangster seen helping with the Lufthansa Heist.