...As my children are half Italian by ancestry, they are lucky they have 
a grandfather who can make me, their totally non-Italian-by-ancestry 
father, see clearly the great heritage of the Italian Americans, despite 
the overblown, mythologized stories of organized crime, fiction or 
nonfiction, where the people involved happen to have Italian surnames. 

I used to think the Mafia stereotype was harmless and that Italian 
Americans who thought otherwise were overly sensitive to it, yourself 
included. 

But you have opened my eyes to how that stereotype taints all 
Americans of Italian heritage, and how unfair it is that organized crime 
is so closely associated to Italian American culture when, as you so 
compellably explained in your article, any group, ethnic or otherwise, 
has its criminal element. 

The media do use the Mafia myth/stereotype to sell product (for ex. 
HBO), and bureaucrats do use it to hide their inability to prevent crime.
 
Now I can better support Maria in teaching our children to see through 
this fallacy, and to be appreciative of their Italian heritage.

Jim