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 wouldn't get to pissed about this stupid article, it is standard fare from illegal apologists.
Many have confused "Irish" with "Scots-Irish". Both of these groups immigrated from the Island of Ireland but are totally different groups. The "Irish" were Catholic and from the "South" of Ireland where the "Scots-Irish" were from Northern Ireland or "Ulster" and were the descendents of Scots from Scotland and were Protestant (Primarily Presbyterians).
Both groups were "Celts".
For the heavy users of recreational drugs I have just one thing to say. Immigrants and illegal aliens are NOT THE SAME THING. Latinos already own and rule ALL of South and Central America. I wonder if that's the real reason they all want to come to North America. They want to come here so bad they will lower themselves to doing jobs Americans are too good to do. What a deal.
Indo-European refers to both a category of languages and a racial group, if you believe that Indians are also Caucasian, rather than Asian.
However, race is neither an absolute nor entirely accurate way of grouping peoples- there have been many definitions and categorizations in the past, and Oriental/Occidental is just one of them.
As for the repeated statement that I've been 'politiced rather than educated', you assume a great deal about my age and background, and your assumptions are wrong, I'm afraid, as well as irrelevant to the discussion.
It's no wonder everyone is halfway dizzy over this illegal alien invasion, the way such lunatics are spinning it.
It's all about the belief that one has The TRUE Truth.
Whether it's a religious fanatic or a Lib, it's about believing you are enlightened and it is your duty, your crusade, to control those who aren't and indoctrinate them until they see the light, too (though, oddly, those who Originally Had The Truth All Along will never accept those they helped see the light as equals--just look at the dems' attitudes toward blacks, and you KNOW what AHM talkin' about).
Liberals are hilarious to me--I'm an atheist--when they FROTH at the mouth over religion and Christian symbols in public places. They are closer to hardcore Muslim fanatics, yet they want you to think they are interested in a truly non-secular society.
They are not. Some here mistake them for being non-secular--I've done it myself--but they are interested in bringing their own godless religion to the masses, in which The State aka The People's Will (funnelled through a board of liberals in charge of all decisions) is the ONLY religion.
We are just all stupid, and the libs will twist reality in order to get us to believe their "truth", and they see nothing wrong with breaking the rules because their goals are just so humanistic and NICE.
They are trying so hard to make this about immigration, because that way they can make their opponents look like mean racists. But it's not about immigration; it's about illegal activity. And I think most people know that, because they've been made so hyper-sensitive to race in this country that they get pissed when someone insinuates they are a racist over what is an issue of legality, not race.
I live here too. We have had general civil unrest in Los Angeles a number of times that I know of. The Rodney King riots, the Watts riots, and recently widespread prison riots. It seems to be the nature of this area.
I don't think it pays to be nervous though. My kids make me crazy enough :)
"as are most Mexicans......."
The vast majority of Mexicans are not white. They're Mestizos of mixed Indian and Spanish blood. There are more pure blood Indian Mexicans than pure white Mexicans.
Did you see some of the signs the demonstrators in L.A. carried that read "We are not Latinos and we're not Hispanics - We're Mexicans" meaning as in Aztecs.
Yep. I want people here who want to be Americans, learn our culture, speak our language, defend our nation, and swear never to support Hillary Clinton.
Sounds like you tried to reason with Once-Ler.
Actually, the vast majority of the Irish came before there was an Ellis Island -- and there was almost no way to be an "illegal" as immigration was very lightly controlled. And plenty of them did want to meddle in our politics for the "Old Sod" -- some Irish Union Army veterans tried to conquer Canada to trade it to the brits for Ireland. And they were certainly thought by many to be vast consumers of American services, especially the jails.
Actually, the vast majority of the Irish came before there was an Ellis Island -- and there was almost no way to be an "illegal" as immigration was very lightly controlled. And plenty of them did want to meddle in our politics for the "Old Sod" -- some Irish Union Army veterans tried to conquer Canada to trade it to the brits for Ireland. And they were certainly thought by many to be vast consumers of American services, especially the jails.
If I were Irish I'd be hopping mad at the comparison. The Irish didn't violate our laws to come here, didn't come in the expectation that everyone would speak Gaelic to serve them, didn't want to annex parts of the USA to Ireland, didn't fill our prisons with wildly disproportionate numbers... in short, they didn't come here to turn the USA into another Ireland, they came to become Americans.
(Chuckling.....and waiting for Dane)....
And judging from my Irish ancestors, they felt it a privilege to be in America and to be an AMERICAN!!!
They are proud to be 'gangsta's'
Just as a fact, I am quite confident that a count of prisoners c. 1859-1900 would have found "wildly disproportionate numbers" of Irish, as compared to native stock, in the big cities of the East. The truth is that almost all immigrant groups are disproprtionately represented at the bottom, and that includes crime, until they get established. That fact doesn't determine the immigration debate either way, but it's just not correct to deny it, and imagine a golden past when all immigrants came over and immediately turned into maodel citizens. Most did, but it took time, then or now.
Probably the over-simplified but mostly spot-on "litmus" test would be whether or not one "blushes" or "sunburns" easily. I do both. In the major metro areas of Mexico, such as Mexico City, and in places with more established hispanic populations, such as San Antonio, there are more folks that look like me, Eva Longoria (from Desperate Housewives), Constance whatever-her-name-is (from George Lopez), and Henry Bonilla, than there are folks that look like the guy holding the sign on my profile page (the more Indian example) or Princess Stephanie (the more Spanish example, although I don't think she's Spanish). However, when you get into the rural areas of Mexico, the Indian type and the Princess Stephanie type extremes are frequently seen.
True.
This totally ignorant writer did not mention that the Irish kids went to school, they studied American History and they assimilated, as you say. They did not wave Irish flags in the street while they bad mouthed the USA.
These stupid articles should be banned. Free Republic members can write better articles to debate. I am so sick of these ignorant leftists who leave off the most basic of facts in their dumb articles.
There's disproportionate, and there's wildly disproportionate. Of course poorer groups will be disproportionately represented in prisons, that's the nature of poverty and low education. But to the degree that our prisons are filled with illegal Mexicans? I would doubt any immigrant group in American history has come close.
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