Coming to America for most people was a
voluntary act which held the hope of achieving Thomas Jefferson’s promise,
“life, liberty, and the pursuit of happinessâ€. For the Irish however,
immigration was a last resort of survival from their infected homeland of
Ireland by British control and famine. The emigration from Ireland came by the
millions exploiting poignant views of prejudice from the natural-born Americans
towards the new Irish-American citizens. The Irish people were negatively stereotyped
by other Americans, shown through a political cartoon titled, “The Ignorant
Vote†which was marketed in 1876 to visually compare the Irish with the fellow
oppressed African Americans. Life in America was not easy for generations of
Irish immigrants due to stereotypes fabricated by the natural-born Americans,
which affected their living conditions and limited their job occupations.
In 1845, the
Great Famine drove families in Ireland into poverty and caused mass starvation.
To escape a likely fate of death, the Irish were forced to flee to America for
a new opportunity of survival. Ensuing, between the years of 1815-1920, 5.5
million people emigrated from Ireland to America (Takaki, 140). Irish families
in America tended to be larger than others, which was interpreted by the
native-born citizens as a “lack of self-control†(Takaki, 149). To further
confirm this stereotype as well as “lacking habits of punctuality and industryâ€
(150), many of the Irish laborershad a drinking problem, often showing up to
work inebriated.
To further demonstrate
the condemning of Irish-Americans, a man named Thomas Nast developed a cartoon
titled “The Ignorant Vote†comparing them to blacks. The two men are sitting on
a scale at equal balance but the Irish man is depicted as an apelike man. Nast
has drawn this picture to show that the black man is unfit to vote, thus the
Irish man is also unfit to vote because of his equal stature. The Irish at this
time were stereotyped “as apelike and ‘a race of savages,’ at the same level of
intelligence as blacks†(Takaki 149) which is clearly shown in the political
cartoon.
Irishmen
immigrating to America were typically unskilled and were forced into labor. The
men were only offered the jobs that no other American wanted to do because of
how dangerous the task was. Many of them died in the work force building
railroads and canals, they were “thought of nothing more than dogs…despised and
kicked about†(Takaki, 147). The families were poor since the wages for Irish
labor was low, that the families were constrained to terrible living
conditions. As well, the “Irish were often dismissed from their jobs for
laziness, gambling, and drinking†(Takaki, 149). These habits may have
developed because of the hardships the Irish had to go through, which only
proved the stereotypes given by the native-born Americans.
Living in
America showed to be undoubtedly difficult for the Irish, “they had crossed the
ocean in pursuit of riches, but failed to find ‘the gold on the street
corners’†(Takaki, 148). After years of prejudice, public oppression, and life
altering stereotypes, the Irish proved themselves durable since they are now
the ones known as the ‘lucky’.
Additional articles
Explain the purpose of the event you select. You can do this by doing the following: a) The Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival is an annual Four-day event developed and produced by Superfly Presents and the AC Entertainment sin...Marketing-Research-Paper …
Read ArticleRussian President Vladimir Putin End-of-Year News Conference; December 2015 The political instability in Syria has escalated to become an issue of international relations. It is an issue that has developed many players from across the world. There a...Civic-Engagement-Essay:-Russia-and-Syria …
Read ArticleDiscussion Questions Types of groups There exist different types of groups within an organization. These types of groups include, formal, informal, primary and secondary. A formal group is one that is developed within an organizat...Organizational-Behavior-Management-(OBM)-:-Discussion-Questions …
Read Article