The Troublesome Irish in Uncle Sam’s Lodging House
Tony’s Kansas City yesterday featured an old political cartoon from Joseph Keppler’s Puck concerning Irish immigrants in America in the late 19th Century.
Called “Uncle Sam’s Lodging House” the cartoon dates from 1882 and shows the Irish guest “kicking up a row” while other guests such as the Englishman, German, Spaniard, Negro and Russian are all “quiet and peaceable”.
You can see where Tony sourced the cartoon from the Michigan State University Museum, where explanatory notes tell us that the accompanying editorial in Puck had a strong anti-Irish sentiment.
Tony’s post draws parallels with much of the language we hear today about Latinos. I’ve always felt it’s an obvious parallel, and one that gets concenviently ignored by many, especially the Irish.
See Related:
• Illegal Irish Immigrants Worth More than Illegal Mexicans
• The San Patricios: The Irish Soldiers of Mexico
• Green, White and Red Apples
• Irish Flags in US Political Demonstrations
• Sharpie Time For Irish Flags
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
Hi Eolai…
How’s your mom doing at this point?
You and yours are in our thoughts over here.
Fascinating discussion about the very issue you raise in
this post took place in the same city ( Kansas City ) at
the end January on another blog in KC.
I believe this discussion now holds the record for the
most number of comments on any post at that
particular blog site.
Full post is here…
http://kcirishfest.blogspot.com/2008/01/no-offense.html
I left a comment there myself regarding the ‘parallels’ of
which you speak. It’s about growing up in Miami and
watching what happened with the ethnic group that
was immigrating to that area in modern times.
Excerpt from my own comment…
[snip]
Regarding the treatment of Irish immigrants in America circa
mid to late 1800s….
I saw the same thing happen in ‘real-time’ when I was growing up in Miami… but on a compressed timeframe and with another
ethnic group.
The Cubans who were lucky enough to escape from Castro with their lives as he came to power fled to Miami. They established themselves there and were successful and were now part of the fabric of the South Florida community.
Then, in the mid 1960’s, President Kennedy decided to start the Cuban Airlift and just let anyone who wanted out of Cuba come to Miami at US taxpayer’s expense. So of course THOUSANDS of ‘new Cubans’ came. This all culminated in the Mariel Boatlift when Castro opened up the prisons and the asylums in Cuba and then he, himself, paid for them to make it across the straights to Miami.
Well… the ORIGINAL Cuban (political) refugees had the same reaction as the early Irish in this country did to the famine influx. They were already established ( and making money ) in Miami and they did NOT want to be associated with all these “poorer” Cubans now pouring into Miami.
So the answer was “marketing”. They took out ads in papers, they drew cartoons, they spoke at meetings and on television. They extended a helping hand while at the same time put a ‘distance’ between themselves and their fellow countrymen that would be sure to not affect their own hard-gained social/economic status in “the new land”.
It worked ( again ).
They even repeated the old New York 5-points scenario and ‘decided’ where it would be best for all the new ‘refugees’ to live ( As in: Not where they lived ). It was a derelict area in Miami next to Liberty City ( the negro area ) called “8th Street”.
So I didn’t need the History books to understand what happened to the Irish coming into this country in the mid-1800’s. I saw the whole thing repeat itself all around me with another ethnic group while
I was growing up.
[/snip]
Kevin Kiley
Yes Kevin, it just goes on and on, each group overcoming its obstacles and then denying the similarities of the next group, even when they’re the same people.
The patient is very slowly recovering, thanks, in a 2 steps forward 1 step backward kind of way.