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.
YOur statement , quoted above, does NOT say that 42.6% of the people in California are illegal aliens. It says that 42.6% of the illegal aliens in the country are in California. Two different things. It's still a lot, but not nearly as much.
I think California's population is around 37 million, an the estimate of illegals in the US that the UI figure are based on, is around 11 million. So, if you believe all the above numbers, the number of illegals in california is around 4.7 million, not 15+ million.
I don't think the CCR site includes county jails, but I am not sure. I'm sure LA county jail is mostly hispanic, and maybe illegals, but there are lots of other jails that are not. The CCR figures show 33% of all their inmates are from LA, so unless the LA jail population is a lot more than 33% of all the jail populations inthe state, it wouldn'ts budge the figures much -- but that's worth looking into, if you're being scholarly.
read later
I went to GOOGLE to enter said term. I then entered WIKIPEDIA.
Apparently a massive operation took place in 1954. It was called Operation (something or other). One million persons were removed South of the Border.
Yer resident Limey at work 'ere. I think we all need a good laugh and relax,after a bit of a fire fight. IMHO.
I'm not sure the title of that article is a good analogy - as has been pointed out in this thread, Irish immigration of the 19th century was legal, Mexican immigration today is not.
The "analogy" is a load of Blarney!
Hi, Irish T!
You Rebs had a lot of Irish Mercenaries on your side as well including a lot of my mothers family.
HEHE, Blarney!!
Legend has it that the Blarney Stone is just tourist trap for Americans!! :)
I'm fine. how are you La En?
Legend has it ... LOL! I went to Blarney Castle and I wouldn't kiss that slimey old rock if you paid me.. the view from up there is great though! I'm not much of a Cork person, can't understand what they're saying anyway! Haha.
I like the west and the northwest.
I'm just foihn. Hehe.
I can't even understand what Corkonians are saying!!
I like the west and the northwest.
I'm a Mayoman, and Sligo is a good place!
Once, when I was taking the boat out to Inis Mor, there was this Cork man talking to me. I could swear he was speaking Swedish or something!
I had a great time in Galway, Clare, Mayo and Donegal, to name of few! Great crac in Bundoran..
Bundoran is Ireland's Las Vegas!!
This is funny, I was just advising someone on another thread to take a trip to Vegas...
There's another town a little ways up from Bundoran, also starts with a 'B'... that may be the one I was thinking of, not sure.
The only common bond between the Irish and Mexicans is the lying thieving racist demagogue Democrats who exploited immigrants.
And for the Irish those bonds exist to this day in form or fashion.
Buncrana?
Ballyshannon!
I think that's where we stayed in the pub after hours and had the most wonderful music session!
HEHE, lock-down!!
Happy hostages...!
I hope the Guards didn't raid!!
There's no fact so solid and immutable that a brain-dead liberal can't beat it into submission.
Legal? Illegal? What's the difference, so long as they CARE more deeply and painfully than normal people?
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