Posted on 04/04/2006 5:34:55 PM PDT by neverdem
Today's rancorous debate over immigration has a parallel in the nativist reaction to the mass Irish immigration in the mid-19th century.
Spurred by the potato famine that began in 1845, 3.5 million mostly destitute Irish migrated to America by 1880 - about 7 percent of the population of 50 million. By contrast, today's 11 million unauthorized immigrants, of all nationalities, constitute just 4 percent of our population.
Contemporary immigration foes, like former Gov. Dick Lamm and Rep. Tom Tancredo, claim America can't absorb so many foreign-born without fatal damage to our economy and culture.
Yet, history shows we did just that. Today, there are 43 million Americans of Irish ancestry, a key element of the vibrant alloy that is America.
Today's nativists argue we can't compare today's illegal immigrants to the Irish, because the Irish came here legally. That's technically true, but the 19th century wave was just as uncontrolled, because America had virtually no bars to immigration in those days.
Kenneth Ackerman's book, "Boss Tweed: The Rise and Fall of the Corrupt Pol Who Conceived the Soul of Modern New York," details how the desperate Irish were welcomed at the docks by the political machine that provided the only social safety net in that era.
Tweed minions would help the newcomers find housing and work and, if there was an election in the offing, they would swiftly be naturalized as citizens in mass ceremonies by Tweed's judges, so they could vote for their benefactors.
Cartoonist Thomas Nast, who hated Irish and Catholics with equal fervor, pandered to the nativist bigotry by depicting Irishmen as drunken, subhuman brutes. The accompanying Nast cartoon depicts the role immigrants played in supporting Tweed by showing an Irish thug and a Catholic priest carving up the Democratic Party goose that laid the golden eggs.
But though the Irish were despised, they were still admitted through America's golden door. That's because Americans needed them to do our dirty work.
The first generations of Irish worked largely at unskilled and semiskilled occupations, but their children found themselves working at increasingly skilled trades. By 1900, when Irish Americans made up about 8 percent of the male labor force, they were almost a third of the plumbers, steamfitters and boilermakers. Their places at the bottom of the ladder were taken by newly arrived laborers from southern and eastern Europe.
Today, those dirty, low-paying, jobs are being taken by Latinos. But if history is any guide, the daughter of that Latina who scrubs your floor today may be the doctor who delivers my granddaughter's baby a generation hence.
To some, that is a frightening prospect. But I think Clio, the muse of history, would join with Lady Liberty herself to say:
Bienvenidos, Americanos nuevos.
Bob Ewegen is The Denver Post's deputy editorial page editor.
I'll agree with you that Central and Southern Americans are not part of a distinct race.
As for the three races, I've got Indo-European/Caucasian, African and Asian/Pacific Islander. What about the indigenous peoples of the Americas or Australia?
Agreed.
"Human nature" would also have us copulating on street corners, defecating in the streets, and murdering our enemies with our bare hands.
So, you've been to NYC?
I've always read that the Aborigines were a category to themselves.
The Irish were not made instant recipients of US taxpayer dollars in the form of welfare, food stamps, resident college tuition, etc., etc. etc., ad infinitum. That's the big difference.
They only thing you got right was the sneaking over the border
Other then that .. the Irish and the Italians were treated like crap ... could be because they were both catholics
Eastern European Jews were treated like crap, too. Every immigrant group gets treated like crap.
that's true
500,000 manage to get together in one place at one time. That is pretty impressive.
The Irish were coming over waaaay before there was an Ellis Island. Bless em.
Immigrant groups get treated like crap for a couple generations. They form crime syndicates, get into sports and entertainment. Eventually,they get into business, send their kids to college, the grand kids kids move out to Long Island and complain about the next immigrant group coming in, which they treat like crap.
Tweed minions would help the newcomers find housing and work and, if there was an election in the offing, they would swiftly be naturalized as citizens in mass ceremonies by Tweed's judges, so they could vote for their benefactors.
He does have this part correct. Corrupt Democrat Party politicians used and abused immigrants 150 years ago and they still do it today. In that respect, nothing has changed.
He doesn't mention the part where Tweed's Tammany Hall under the Wood brothers, incited the so-called New York Draft Riots during the Civil War and drove poor Irish immigrants to vicious race rioting, beating, murdering and hanging any blacks they found on the streets because they were told that the "Black Republicans" and "Black Lincoln" were freeing the slaves to take jobs away from the Irish.
Nothing has changed in that regard either. The Democrat party has been dealing the race card from both sides of the deck for a 150 years.
In addition, when it became apparent that immigrants were displacing low-income Americans from their jobs, tough measures were taken to restrict legal immigration. Oddly enough, when a potential slave labor force wasn't available for exploitation, wages rose for native-born low-income workers. Funny how that works out.
LOL! You said it right.
Yup.
And it's absolutely true that the worst Americans I've known have been home-grown.
I'm still sitting around waiting for my turn to treat someone like crap...one day. We all have dreams.
And it's absolutely true that the worst Americans I've known have been home-grown.
I've found it to be a mixed bag. All groups have idiots and good people. Unfortunately, I'm an idiot magnet.
Scots-Irish (Orange) is just another way of saying "not Catholic". The discrimination faced by the "Green Irish" had nothing to do with Ireland and everything to do with Religion.
BTW. My mother (the daughter of a Green Irish immigrant) married my father (the son of an Orange Irish immigrant). Naturally, I fight with myself a lot --- and enjoy it. ;~))
Ya got a point there
Though my mother always taught us kids to treat others as we would want others to treat us
And if we didn't .. she'd smack us upside our heads
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