Does this happen anymore? The reason I ask is that I was watching a rerun of “Law & Order”, where an Irish family thought they were getting a bum rap because they were Irish.
Now I live in LA, which is relatively not racially conscious. NY still seems to have a lot of race problem. I’m sure there aren’t any NINA signs now, but does it still exist?
About 15 years ago I was dating this guy who introduced me to a couple of his aunts “from the old country”. One of them asked me “Where did you meet John?” I told her I met him at an Irish dance. She said “Ohhhh… but you’re too nice a girl to be Irish!”
So, as of 15 years ago, yes, anti-Irish sentiments still existed. It would not surprise me to know that some people still feel this way.
Up front: All 4 of my grandparents were born in Ireland, and came to the U.S. in the 1920s. So, I’m about as Irish as it’s possible to be. I also grew up in New York City, the setting of “Law and Order.” So I feel well qualified to answer the question.
In my lifetime, Irish-Americans have suffered NOTHING worth calling discrimination in this country. Unless you consider the occasional “drunken Irishman” joke amounts to oppression, Irish-Americans have it mighty good in the United States.
Now, even though I reject the notion that MODERN-day Irish-Americans suffer any meaningful discrimination, the scene in question is quite believable. I know from experience that many Irish-Americans in New York City are EAGER to claim they’re victims of prejudice and discrimination! SOme of them actually seem to believe it!
Perhaps this results from stories they heard while growing up. True enough, in the 19th century, nativist Protestant Americans looked down on the Irish. EVERY ugly stereotype you’ve ever heard about African-Americans was applied routinely to the Irish in the 19th century (they’re lazy and shiftless, they don’t want to work, all they want to do is get drunk and sire illegitimate babies…). And in the 19th century, job discrimination and “No Irish Need Apply” signs were real and common.
But NO living Irishman in New York remembers such things first-hand (heck, the Irish dominated New York City politcs before the turn of the Century!). He may have HEARD about such things from his grandparents, and internalized the stories, to the point where the prejudice feels real and personal. And he’ll be only TOO happy to whip out stories of long-ago prejudice when he hears a black man complain about racism (“oh, you niggers think YOU have it hard? We Irish had it just as bad as you, even worse, but WE didn’t demand affirmative action!”).
That’s a joke, right? Or was I hallucinating when I watched L.A. burn after the Rodney King fiasco?
Thanks to everyone who replied to my post. As a Korean kid hearing about it in junior high school I was very confused. Racism against the Irish? But they’re white!
Oh, I’m not denying that we have race problems. Maybe we are both victims of media portrayal. My wife and I have satellite tv with the NY local news, and it seems to us that everyday there is a racial incident story.
Erin go brath! 
I have lived on both coasts and in between, and it is my experience that out west, it seems that there two categories: whites and minorities.
Back east, it seems different, at least in the big cities. They have what I perceive to be white areas, yet each seems to have its own designation – Irish, Polish, Italian, and so forth. This is in addition to the Black neighborhoods, Puerto Rican neighborhoods, etc.
In the west, there are areas, such as Japantown and Chinatown, as well as Compton and East LA that are traditional ethnic centers, but “whites” don’t seem to be segregated into their own “ethnicities”, like it is on the east coast.
Perhaps it has to do with the traditional neighborhoods back east going clear back to immigration times. I don’t know.
On the West Coast nearly all of the European immigrants moved there from somewhere else in the U.S.
On the East Coast, the European immigrant neighborhoods sprung up from where first generation immigrants settled in different parts of cities.
On the West Coast, the more recent immigrants are from Asia, Mexico, or Central America and they tend to settle in areas where their fellow immigrants have already settled into.
This is a very rough generalization that I’ve just come up with in the last minute so don’t accept it as the last word on demographics.
In California, whites are the minority but even that depends upon how the census is taken: Hispanic can be counted as white or non-white depending upon how the census question is worded or what options are given.
Can remember arguing with my Dad about Irish prejudice - he only read about it as 19th century anecdotes about the Irish in Boston seeing employment signs saying “No Irish need apply.” Both of his parents immigrated from Ireland to Canada, then to the US. At the time I believe he was denigrating the Civil Rights Movement. I reminded him that the Irish arrived speaking the same language, were of the same religion, were not enslaved and shackled en route to the US, located themselves in Irish ghettos upon arrival, had relatives sponsor their citizenship. Hardly what black slaves enjoyed.
We had our share of drunken relatives and still do. Fortunately, my family is kinda Old Irish; the drinkers are tolerated and are mellow rather than combative.
I’m Irish and I live in the Boston area and I’ve never been discriminated against because I’m Irish.
I don’t think there are any poor Irish-Americans rotting in jail simply for being Irish, or any cause for a Irish Civil rights movement in this country. But I do think there is a soft prejudice against the Irish. Stereotypes about Irish drunks, big and rowdy Irish families, bigoted Irish “hard-hats” and so on still persist, just as Italian-Americans still get dogged by “mob” comments.
Here in the West, basically any non-Hispanic white is considered an “Anglo”, which leads to ludicrous statements in the media such as “Councilmen Stanislavsky and Benedetti, the Anglo candidates for mayor…” At least on the East Coast people have more of an ethnic identity. In a way its sort of refreshing to see ethnic communities, and not stale suburbia everywhere. In New York, Spanish speaking people are Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Mexicans, Cubans, and Salvadoreans, etc. , and maintain strong rivalries at times. In the west they all become “Hispanics” or “Latinos”, or are just refered to as “Mexicans” out of ignorance.
Sort of a hijack, but when the Irish came to America in the 19th century didn’t many only speak Gaelic? English was only established in western Ireland after the Potato Famine period, or am I wrong?
I’m not trying to nitpick, I just remember learning that somewhere.
English was quite well established in Ireland by well before the Famine period. Most of the famine emigrants would have learned at least enough of it to get by, and a good number of them would speak it fluently or almost, although depending what part of the country they were from they might still have used Irish at home.
Anti-Irish prejudice is still a problem in England and especially in Scotland, BTW.
ruadh, why “especially in Scotland”? I’m curious.
http://www.sundayherald.com/13671
http://www.sundayherald.com/3588
“Sectarianism” is the shorthand term but prejudice against the Irish is at the root of it.
From my own experiences in England I would say that there remains a fair amount of prejudice and statistics I believe bear out that the Irish tend to be worse off economically (don’t have a cite for that, but I could probably dig one up). However, Scotland - or at least the West of Scotland - is much worse than England as far as the role this prejudice plays in daily life.
FWIW, the L&O episode in the OP was mainly about the prejudice held by the “old rich” against the “old poor.” For some reason, the author(s) of that episode decided to emphasize poor by making the poor kid Irish.
They are interesting links. I had always thought of Scottish sectarianism as being purely domestic, but I can see how anti-Irish feeling is involved (just as anti-French and anti-Irish prejudice was caught up with English anti-Catholicism in the 17th and 18th Centuries).
On the point about poverty and health, my own feeling is that you are probably right about the outcomes but I’m not sure how much this is down to direct discrimination as opposed to other factors affecting immigrant communities. I’m sure you would find similar figures relating to Bangaldeshis, for example, or Somalis and it would be difficult to disentangle the effect of racism from the various other factors at work.
I hope that the Glasgow University research referred to in the second article is not as dodgy as it sounds, and that the various glaring errors in the argument are the result of sloppy reporting by the newspaper.
As the second of the articles from the Sunday Herald mentions, there has recently been much debate within Scotland about the extent to which anti-Catholic/Irish prejudice has survived. The origins of that prejudice is not in dispute - the existing working class population of Glasgow felt threatened by the large-scale Irish immigration into the city during the nineteenth century. Traces of that prejudice undoubtedly survive, although my own sense is that this is now less specifically anti-Irish as anti-Catholic, mainly because Catholicism has proved to be the strongest cultural legacy persisting among those of Irish descent. The survival of separate Catholic state schools is an additional factor.
I have a very close friend who’s an Irish man living in the Boston area. He recently told me that he thinks being Irish HELPS him in certain circumstances. He mentioned that people find his accent interesting, that people think of Ireland as a romantic place, and that he often feels people treat him with added interest and respect because he’s not a “boring old American.”
Of course, GOOD stereotypes are still stereotypes and can lead to discrimination (i.e., all African-Americans are good at basketball, all Jewish people know how to handle money well, etc.). And this poor guy’s taken enough discrimination from ME in terms of making fun of his accent,asking him for Lucky Charms, and counting his freckles. But I get the feeling that most Irish in this area aren’t at a disadvantage simply because they’re Irish. Not from his perspective anyway.
-L
Same deal. I remember one day at my first real job back in Boston, my boss asked me if I new what “nina” was and thinking it’s kind of a weird question answered, "it’s the Spanish word for a female child. He laughed at my answer and was more amazed I didn’t know the other meaning. He was a WASP and explained how back when he was a kid his parents discriminated against Irish people. I just thought to myself “why would anyone do that”.