Abstract
Having faced serious hardships in United States since they first came to this land searching for a better life, Irish immigrants resisted famine, discrimination, oppression and unfair treatment and in the end achieved the respect that they deserve. Irish were caricaturized, discriminated and stereotyped as savage, uncivilized, lazy, drunken, with criminal instincts individuals. They were brutally oppressed by the colonizers of United States, who were not allowing them to have other than blue collar jobs, considering them second hand citizens. Labor was hard and the payment was very low. All these hardships started to diminish when the Irish people entered politics, taking advantage of the significant representativeness of Irish people in United States. Irish presence in U.S. politics meant increased life standards for Irish, with better paid jobs and equal treatment with the white Americans. Nowadays Irish are respected as equal citizens in U.S and all over the world.
The “white - negroes” coming from Europe to United States starting with the 17th century were treated poorly for a long time in U.S. Although they were not made into slaves, they experienced unfair treatment, discrimination, offense or mockery, being considered an inferior race to the white – Americans, because they were very poor, facing starvation (Stahl, 2013).
As a social status, Irish immigrants were placed in the same category with the free negroes, the African Americans. Irish immigrants and African Americans were competing for the same low-paid and diminishing jobs and there were specific racial discrimination receipts in the daily existence of the 17th to 19th century United States. The popular culture abounded with mass media caricatures, wherein the Irish immigrants were stereotypically portrayed into various characters: the happy drunken, stupid old Irish man singing traditional songs, the drunken criminal or the hard worker Irish woman (Daniels, 2009). Moreover, alongside the African Americans, Irish immigrants were presented as ape-like creatures within the most popular publications of the time, engaging the white-Americans into intensifying the racial treatment against the representatives of these races (Daniels, 2009). The Irish people were not allowed in bars, as signs were strictly specifying outside their entries, considering Irish no more than dogs (Takaki, 2008). Irish immigrants were also discriminated in the recruiting process, as the available jobs of the past centuries were mentioning clearly “No Irish Need Apply” (Daniels, 2009).
The Irish were perceived in United States as people living outside the civilization, having no sense of God, religion or private property, inclined towards stilling and depriving in laziness and criminality (Takaki, 2008). They were associated and at times even inferior to African Americans, with whom Irish were competing for jobs. In order to become assimilated in the American society and to fight the discriminative behavior against them, the Irish were claiming white race belongingness, demonstrating that they have white skin, hair and eyes, as compared with the African Americans. Hence, the Irish immigrants were requesting that they would be the first to be considered for jobs, not the African Americans, who have been born in U.S. (Takaki, 2008).
The supremacy of white – Americans upon the Irish immigrants was justified, according to the 19th century media, by the fact that the Irish people where Celtic, not Anglo-Saxons. Therefore, they were considered inferior from an intelligence point of view and attributed the value of second-hand citizenship (Stahl, 2013). Once arrived in United States with the “coffin ships” that brought them from Ireland, across the Atlantic Ocean, the Irish were easily recognized although they spoke English, because they had a distinctive accent, wore different clothing, most were uneducated and had no business culture (Stahl, 2013). The Irish immigrants occupied the blue-collar positions and faced economic hardships (Takaki, 2008). The Irish men who were able to find jobs worked in back-breaking roles such as in constructions, building U.S. railroad, bridges, tunnels or canals, or in mining, having to pay for high rents, as the landlords overcharged them just for being Irish (Stahl, 2013). Irish women had to support their families by working as servants, maids, nannies or housekeepers, in order to be able to afford the expensive lifestyle that they faced in United States (Stahl, 2013).
In the social context of the 19th century and beyond, because the Irish were considered un-civilized and second-class citizens, regulations were imposed for prohibiting the marriage between Irish and English colonists in U.S. (Takaki, 2008). The hardships that the Irish immigrants faced in United States did not resume to sole social discrimination by not allowing them to have white collar jobs and to marry somebody outside their race. It included oppressions, violent outbursts and deaths, directed by the ones claiming nativism in United States, who were in fact not native, only came to U.S. few decades before the Irish and claimed the land (Stahl, 2013).
Nevertheless, while the Irish were discriminated, badly treated and oppressed in various occasions, they were, nevertheless, registered in the U.S. Army and recruited for the wars ad battles that United States worn with other states.
The exploitation of the Irish in various U.S. industries brought death upon them, as they were attributed the most dangerous jobs. In response to the unfair job treatment and he poor work and living conditions, the Irish men grouped in a secret move that started in New England, called the Secret Order of the Knights if St. Crispin. This order became the most numerous labor union in U.S., with more than fifty thousand membership in 1870, striking for higher salaries, eight hours of daily work and fair treatment (Takaki, 2008). The strike was rapidly broken because the owner of the factory that entered the strike fired the strikers and hired Chinese workers, who proved more effective than the Irish (Takaki, 2008).
For putting up with the severe hardship that they endured, Irish immigrants had to become Americans, so they have put in efforts to adjust and to become integrated into the American culture, becoming white and Americans. As such, they embraced the American accent, they gradually ascended from blue collar jobs to entering politics and business, having equal payments as the white Americans (Takaki, 2008).
Because they were composing a large number of the U.S. inhabitants, Irish could no longer be ignored and they became significant voters. With this attribution, they organized in groups, electing Irish people to coordinate them and even entered in the U.S. politics, running and winning various state functions (“Irish Potato Famine”, n.d.). In this way, Irish started to rise, as the Irish politicians were struggling for increasing the Irish people’s rights. Descendants of the great famine were becoming regular workers with similar rights with those of white Americans, occupying civil roles, working as firemen, police officers and alike in the U.S. cities and soon running for presidential elections (“Irish Potato Famine”, n.d.). While the first Irish presidential candidate did not win the elections, coming the second after the President Herbert Hoover in 1928, later on, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, with Irish origins, was to became the 35th U.S. President (“Irish Potato Famine”, n.d.).
Currently, the Irish are living in United States and all over the world as westernized citizens, are educated in the highest academic institutions and hold significant roles in corporations, politics, etc. There are no practiced discriminations against Irish people nowadays, as discriminative behavior is prohibited and penalized by law. Due to the fierce resistance of the former descendants of the Irish famine in United States, the nowadays Irish Americans are respected as equal citizens with equal rights throughout the world, including in U.S.
References
Daniels, J. (2009) Irish-Americans, racism and the pursuit of Whiteness. Retrieved from http://www.racismreview.com/blog/2009/03/17/irish-americans-racism-whiteness/.
Irish potato famine (n.d.) The History Place. Retrieved from http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/famine/america.htm.
Stahl, M. (2013) Irish immigrants. Retrieved from http://ckwacademy.mdl2.com/pluginfile.php/3017/mod_resource/content/1/1300_irish_immigrants.pdf.
Takaki, R. (2008) A different mirror: A history of multicultural America. Little, Brown and Company.
