This picture is from the 19th century US periodical Puck. It is saying that the only group in society that will not assimilate are the dreaded Irish (I originally found this and a bunch of other anti-Irish illustrations from the 19th century here).
So here we are, in the 21st century, and of course the dreaded Irish still refuse to assimilate don't they?
What? You mean they have? Gosh. Do you think other cultures and nationalities might eventually assimilate, given time?
I'm not sure the Irish have fully assimilated yet. How do you explain the Kennedys or Bill O'Reilly?
ReplyDeleteHappy St. Patrick's Day. I will have an Irish coffee tonight in his blessed memory.
Excellent post - when I went to Ellis Island, they have a lot of similar period cuttings and stories and it did make me think about today's hysteria with the Hispanics.
ReplyDeletehttp://rolandhulme.blogspot.com/2008/04/ellis-island.html
To me the Irish have had a large impact on US. Especially in NYC - isn't every other cop - Irish.
ReplyDelete1996 I did see the San Francisco Irish Day parade. It was gigantic. And the little girls trying to keep with the parade whilst doing the dancing was real fun.
I just read
"Deer hunting with Jesus : dispatches from America's class war / Joe Bageant"
Also the name of his web
Joe Bageant
The book is angry and a depressing view of what is happening in US. Includes a whole chapter on The Irish/Scots
Here is a flavour
"wherein all that is good
in America is attributed to Scots Irish willingness to make war."
Some available on web as a PDF
www.coldtype.net/Assets.05/Essays/02.Joe.Scots.pdf
Warning Joe writes with 4 letter words etc.
His brother is a pastor and Joe finds that strange.
Hi, Ron. I took a look at the website. It's hard to tell much from only a few minutes and two posts so it's impossible for me to confirm or deny if Joe Bageant's perceptions are valid or not.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if Bageant thinks that Thomas Frank is a perceptive and insightful critic of the so-called red states, then I won't bother reading him further.
Just to be clear: I don't know if Bageant thinks Thomas Frank is insightful or not, but Mother Jones does, and it praised Bageant's book as taking Frank's book "to the next level."
According to Amazon, the execrable Howard Zinn has high praise for Bageant's book which is a big red flag (pardon the pun) for me.
Hi BL
ReplyDeleteI did find Joe's main theme - that many US working class think they are middle class - fairly well proven. But as I said he is very angry and I don't know as I would want to read him much.
I do not know Zinn or Frank.
I did find Mother Jones
and much amused by a comment on the review.
"Excellent review of excellent book. I
would suggest further that Bageant is
a cross between Herbert Marcuse and
Michael Moore. Also lies somewhere
between Hunter Thompson and Shakespear"
Now Moore I can understand BUT the Bard - really