They were considered less-than-human, unskilled, violent and threatening to Americans’ livelihood. Worst of all, they followed the wrong religion.
Driven out of their native land by deprivation and death, they came here more out ofdesperation than choice. They were willing to endure any hardship, menial labor and living conditions because America’s worst wasn’t as bad as what they’d left behind.
Sickness and death were constant traveling companions. Tens of thousands never reached the United States, dying of diseases generated by the inhumane, unsanitaryconditions they endured along the way.
Upon arrival here in America they were greeted with prejudice and blatant discrimination, hostility and violence. Their very presence was opposed by powerful politicians simply because of who they were and the Faith that they practiced.
They took the most-dangerous and physically exhausting jobs that no one else wanted. Yet they were reviled for taking Americans’ work.
Deeply rooted sectarian fears fired up mobs, who burned houses of worship and killed religious leaders. One of the biggest fears was that their ever-growing numbers would result in the imposition of religious law in America.
Political parties formed or coalesced against them. And anti-immigrant passions profoundly affected national, congressional and states’ elections for a time.
“They” were the Irish. All of this happened in antebellum America, during the 1840s and 1850s.
While immigrants had been trickling into America since the earliest colonial days, “The Great Famine,” better known here as the Irish Potato Famine, turned the trickle into the United States’ first major immigrant wave. About a million Irish died of starvation between 1845 and 1849; another million came here.
The famine’s cause, the potato blight, ravaged much of Europe and prompted others – especially Germans – tomigrate here around the same time. Because most of these immigrantswere Roman Catholics,their overwhelming numbers fanned fears among America’s Protestant establishment that Catholics would seize political power and turn control over to the Pope.
Naturally, immigration-related issues became the political cause of the day. Politicians, whether out of sincerity or sanctimony, appealed to nativist sentiments. Secretive nativist organizations coalesced into a national party that wielded substantial political clout in the mid-1850s on a platform that was anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant.
The nativist movement quickly melted within the super-heated politics thatimmediately preceded the Civil War. In the decades that followed, the Irish assimilated, gathered political clout and became part of the American establishment.
Now 170 years later, comparisons between those times and our timesseem unavoidable. What can History teach us, especially as we approach St. Patrick’s Day?
While rooted in a Roman Catholic saint’s feast day, St. Patrick’s Day is only observed as such by devout Catholics. For the rest of us, St. Patrick’s Day is a time of revelry and celebration of Celtic culture.
Back in the 1850s, mobs were burning Irish Roman Catholic churches. Come this March 17, mobs will be crowded into bars, drinking green beer and wearing “Kiss me, I’m Irish” pins.
On St. Patrick’s Day, as you savor your corned-beef and cabbage, consider everything that the Irish have contributed to this nation of ours since they stepped off of those fetid, over-crowded transport ships onto a soil where they were not welcomed. Consider how much poorer of a place America would be without the Irish.
Then think about other immigrant groups and what they’ve brought here in the way of traditions, art, music, food and family life. In most instances, they, too, were not welcomed by the natives.
Yet all of them – every immigrant group thus far – has persevered, assimilated, and contributed their threads to the fabric of American life.
Are thererelevant lessons, awaiting us back in the 1850s, for a nation struggling today with issues such as border walls and DACA?You won’t find that answer here.
Look intoour history. Then search your heart.