Ethnic Description

Letter to the Editor, Chicago Tribune, June 2, 2010

This is in response to "Notorious mob hit man, 71, dies; Onetime 'hammer' of Chicago Outfit was serving time for 1972 slaying" (News, May 16), by Tribune reporter Andrew L. Wang.

As a national educational organization, we humbly appeal to your sense of journalistic fair play and balance. Wang, writing about the late gangster Harry Aleman, refers to him as "half Italian." Curiously the other half of his ethnicity goes unidentified. As someone who comes from a journalistic background myself, I ask, what is the reason for this? The underlying assumption behind that phrase is two-fold: Being a thug and being Italian go hand-in-hand, and only Americans with Italian surnames are involved in organized crime.

— Bill Dal Cerro, national president, Italic Institute of America, Chicago