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.
True, we can't let independent and rational thought stand in the way of liberalism!! :)
They may have tried. We usually would get a warning: The gardai are coming...
Everything would hush.
Maybe a false alarm.
(grin)
I know one Garda who'd come into a pub to warn everyone that his colleagues are on the way!!
Uh oh.
Well, I didn't want to be the one to say that!
It's still a lovely day here, I must away...
See you soon. Thanks for the chat.
Seeya La En - and thank you!!
Excellent post.
Jail Profile Survey Annual Report 2001
The number of criminal illegal aliens in California jails is increasing. In 1996, the number of criminal illegal aliens was reported to be 6,912 inmates, or 9.6% of the population. In 2001, this percentage had risen to 13% (9,658 inmates) even though the ADP for 1996 and 2001 were within 1,800 inmates of one another. Chart 9 illustrates the number of criminal illegal aliens in California’s jails from 1995 to 2001.
Bundoran's my home town - take a look at some pics on my home page - might take you back!
Thank you very much.
The Irish also didn't expect to receive a bilingual education,
They spoke English. Irish Gaelic was banned by the British.
No it wasn't.
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"I agree that the Mexicans are not interested in becoming Americans, but can we leave the racism to them?"
"Wetback" is no more racist a term than "redneck".
In 1845, all who came to America assimilated to the culture. In 2006 none will. The hordes accosting our land now will set up enclaves. They bring their culture with them. They have no desire to become Americans. They want our land and our money to perpetuate their own culture, the nation of Aztlan. They will rend the fabric of this country into tatters if allowed to persist in their self-acknowledged "reconquista". They share no values or ethics or philosophy with us. Because they do not, America will become Balkanized--the required ingredient for a civil war. There will be ethnic cleansing. They, like the Muslims, are centuries behind our advanced Western society.
They bring us nothing of value from their failed Marxist societies (except for their brute labor in a small but greatly overexaggerated segment of our economy), and wish nothing but to drag us down to their level. Their predations will reduce life in America to the equivalent of that in a third-world country in short order.
Worth repeating.
Same deal here.........mother was Irish Catholic.......father was Scots-Irish Presbyterian. As with most Catholics.........my mother is a diehard liberal/socialist while my father was a staunch Southern Conservative.
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.
You mean is frogs a race? ;-)
Depends, I imagine on who you are talking to when you use it.
Comments urgently requested. :-)
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What's this "we" business? What were you doing in 1863?
When I speak of my family I often use "we" in a context like this, "we" were on both sides of the war, my line, and my home state were both of the Confederacy.
Perhaps you have spoken of what "we" did in World War II, You may even have gone so far as to say "we" when speaking of your cities sports team in the playoffs.
You seem annoyed today.
Yes, I know there are white Hispanics.
I am one of them (Cuban).
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