Irish were Latinos of their day

The Denver Post ^ | 4/01/2006 | Bob Ewegen

[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.

[Labyrinthos]

I don't recall other European immigrants treated as poorly as the Irish.

That's because they weren't, although the Italians came close. I recall reading someplace about an Irish priest in Charleston, SC or perhaps Savannah, GA, who was asked by a reporter back in the 1830's what he thought about the slavery situation. He reportedly scoffed something like "I'll answer that question when the average Irishman is treated as well as the average slave."

[Labyrinthos]

I don't recall other European immigrants treated as poorly as the Irish.

That's because they weren't, although the Italians came close. I recall reading someplace about an Irish priest in Charleston, SC or perhaps Savannah, GA, who was asked by a reporter back in the 1830's what he thought about the slavery situation. He reportedly scoffed something like "I'll answer that question when the average Irishman is treated as well as the average slave."

[Ditto]

If you want to talk ethnic, the numbers of the hispanic population is much higher than 40%.

I assume you are just talking California, not the entire nation. I don't have time to look up the official stats right now, but most politely, I'd suggest that you may be confusing some stats here.

I could buy the statement that 40% of inmates in California are Hispanic due to the large Hispanic population there and the number of very dangerous home grown street/drug gangs throughout the state. But I can not believe that 40% of the total inmates in CA prisons are illegals.

Could it be that you got some numbers jumbled and that what you are saying is that 40% of all Hispanic inmates in California are illegals? That would be a far more reasonable possibility.

[wardaddy]

rationalization by RINO and other Lefty moonbats.

anything to justify the Mexicanization of the Southwest and beyond.

[Betis70]

>>While the vast majority of Irish immigrants were hard working and law abiding, Irish organized crime was very real and very violent.

For example Hell's Kitchen in NYC until very recently.

And being American of Irish and Mexican descent, I guess that pretty much sums me up--hard working and law abiding, with a touch of violence when confronted by a lack of potatoes, beer, corn or chile peppers.

;-)

[Labyrinthos]

Hell's Kitchen is exactly what I was thinking of, which is where the "Westies" ruled. I was also thinking about the the "Bowery Boys." The Irish mafia used to subcontract out the really important "wacks" to the Westies.

[Betis70]

Yup, the Irish thugs were pretty hard-core. There was a Discovery-type documentary on them recently I believe.

[Labyrinthos]

Here are some links to articles on Irish organized crime:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Mob

http://www.deathreference.com/Nu-Pu/Organized-Crime.html

http://www.gangland.net/westies.htm

http://www.mobmagazine.com/managearticle.asp?C=130&A=9037

What really cracks me up is that many Freepers have this erroneous belief that Mexicans and others from Central America are the first immigrants to bring violent crime and into the United States.

[Nachum]

I assume you are just talking California

But I can not believe that 40% of the total inmates in CA prisons are illegals.

Yes, I do mean California. If you go back to my post (#247), I cited US justice dept. figures that show that the illegals comprise more than 50% of the California inmate population are illegals. That number alone is over 108,000.
(http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/3/27/114208.shtml)

It is only common sense to assume that if you count hispanics who are not illegal the total number of hispanics, legal plus illegal comprise a much larger number than 50%. I don't think my numbers are jumbled at all. Living and working in Los Angeles, it is obvious to all how large the hispanic population is here.

[MOgirl]

Hello,

My family, after crossing from Ireland, wanted to be Americans. Millions of others wanted the same. Many illegal aliens today do not want to be Americans. The difference is as large as the ocean.

Glad to be here, MOgirl

[Ditto]

I cited US justice dept. figures that show that the illegals comprise more than 50% of the California inmate population are illegals. That number alone is over 108,000.

Not to be picky here, but you haven't cited any DoJ figures. You are citing NEWSMAX.com, which even though it has a "conservative" slant, sadly ranks even below the New York Times in terms of accuracy and fact checking. The actuat statistics are out there on the web at some .gov site. It would just take some time to track them down.

The closest I see to an "informed" statistic was the quote from Pete Wilson that disputes your 40% figure.

One in five in our prison population were illegal immigrants who had been convicted of a felony after entering the country illegally."

That's 20%, not 40%

[B Knotts]

Hmmm...looks like it might be worth trying, but they don't sell it out here.

[durasell]

It's not bad. A little fruity. Also, Fat Angel is pretty good.

[Pa' fuera]

'wetback' is a racist epithet, and doesn't help the argument. Racism is also against FR policy- and why would you want to forfeit the moral high ground in a discussion on illegal immigration where you are right?

the politically correct term is "mojado", and it is common Spanish usage for one who crosses the border illegally, as in se fue de mojado

[Nachum]

Not to be picky here, but you haven't cited any DoJ figures. You are citing NEWSMAX.com, which even though it has a "conservative" slant, sadly ranks even below the New York Times in terms of accuracy and fact checking. The actuat statistics are out there on the web at some .gov site. It would just take some time to track them down.

Not to be pickier, but the statistic that the Newsmax article uses is from an Investors Business Daily article written in March of 2005. Would you impeach their reporting as well? But, since you wanted the statistics from a government site, I will endeavor to find the statistic elsewhere. 40% or more seems perfectly plausible in California. Come and visit our state some time and see for yourself. :)

[TASMANIANRED]

The other difference is they already spoke
English even if accented.

[BohDaThone]

I tracked your reference, and it says that 27% of drug convictions IN FEDERAL COURT are of illegal aliens. Federal convictions are a very small part of all drug convictions, and they, of course, concentrate on cross-border operations. Not saying that it is not a problem, but it is a far cry from saying that 27% of all drug offenders across the country are illegal hispanics, or even all hispanics.

There is no question that every immigrant wave has brought productive honest people, moochers, and criminals, in different proportions. There is also no question that our public benefit system makes it easier for the second category today, as oposed to 100-150 years ago. The question is as to how to make the system work to get the highest proportion of the first,and the lowest of the other 2. But claiming that few or no illegals are working and not commiting crimes (and simple illegal status is currently only a civil offense) is just not true.

In fact, there is often a blatant contradicition between the claims that ilelgals are all sitting around on welfare and the claim that they are all taking jobs from hard-working americans who are unemployed because they can't find work beaccuse the illegals have taken it all.

[BohDaThone]

http://www.corr.ca.gov/divisionsboards/aoap/factfiguresarchive/factsfigures3rdq2005.html

Is the web site for the Cal Dept of Corrections. It shows 37% of prisoners Hispanic, v. 32% of population. So pop of california is over 11 million Hispanics, and 4 million is the highest estimate (way above the Census estimate) of illegals, so maybe 20% of all prisoners being illegal aliens would be about right. Also note that hispanics are more concentrated in the more crime-prone younger ages [not many criminals among the Leisure World crowd, of whatever race], so the age comparable comparison is even closer to parity.

All crime is still a huge problem -- is I said earlier, the trick is to get a policy to keep the productive and keep out the criminals and moochers.

[neverdem]

I tracked your reference, and it says that 27% of drug convictions IN FEDERAL COURT are of illegal aliens. Federal convictions are a very small part of all drug convictions, and they, of course, concentrate on cross-border operations. Not saying that it is not a problem, but it is a far cry from saying that 27% of all drug offenders across the country are illegal hispanics, or even all hispanics.

Noncitizens in the Federal Criminal Justice System, 1984-94

"A study by the Urban Institute estimated that approximately 86% of the illegal aliens living in the United States are concentrated in seven states: Arizona (1.7%), California (42.6%), Florida (9.5%), Illinois (5.2%), New Jersey (3.4%), New York (13.2%), and Texas (10.6%). The Institute estimated that 2.8% of the combined population of these States are illegal aliens (Rebecca L. Clark, Jeffrey S. Passel, Wendy N. Zimmermann and Michael E. Fix, Fiscal Impact of Undocumented Aliens: Selected Estimates for Seven States, The Urban Institute (September 1994).)"

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/p03.pdf had no useful information regarding illegal aliens in California prisons. You'll have to forgive this old reference that the DOJ used from the Urban Institute, but if California had a population that was 42.6% illegal alien a dozen years ago, it would not surprise me that, all other things being equal, that their numbers now approach 50% in California prisons.

Add to that folks with an ideology of reconquista, no interest in assimilation, aliens being responsible for 55% of multiple drug resistant TB in this country, a higher risk for chronic diseases such as asthma, high blood pressue and adult onset diabetes mellitus, the latter two being associated with higher risk for coronary artery disease and stroke, with their worse morbidity and mortality being associated with a putative hidden bias or indifference by the health care profession, well this doc says no thanks.

[Nachum]

Is the web site for the Cal Dept of Corrections

I wonder if that includes local and county jails as well: ie. the L.A. county jail.