It was alphaboi867 who wrote that “Italian immigrants were to Argentina what German immigrants were to the US”. I agree that both the absolute numbers and the percentages are interesting. Argue with alphaboi867, not me.
@alphaboi867 didn’t say anything about the absolute numbers.
This reminds me Polish jokes, I mentioned to my young cousin about a show doing Polish jokes (All in the Family) and she was nonplussed on what was so funny about making fun of the Polish. And then I thought hey when Pope John Paul the first Polish became the Pope, the jokes that had strewn around for decades subsided.
When my Italian great-grandma was taken out for pizza for the first time in the 50s, she took one look at it and said - this isn’t pizza!
Supposedly it grew in popularity in the US partly as a result of American service people who returned from the Second World War having been exposed to it while serving in Italy. (And really WWII might be responsible for exposing Americans to a lot of different cultures and foods.)
That and the Solidarity uprising which took place not long afterward. Polish jokes were basically “dumb foreigner” jokes with a specific group attached to them. The Poles were singled out because, from the perspective of native-born Americans, they seemed like weirdly exotic people with a strange language who came from an obscure part of the world. That wasn’t the case by 1980 when Poland was regularly in the news and had long ceased being unknown to Americans. There was also the fact Polish-Americans had been assimilated into the general populace for several generations so the old stereotypes no longer applied (if they ever did).
I suggest you read book “the rise and fall of the Caucasian race”, where it mentions (IIRC) in 1500’s it was forbidden for British to intermarry with Irish
I think that was more about Protestants marrying Catholics. i.e. it was about religion, not race or nationality.
I think the term British includes the Irish. The detailed history is interesting. No one ever remembers what a powerhouse Wessex once was.
Again, many successive waves of immigration were looked down upon, sometimes by people of similar background.
Some current Americans of Latin American background who have been in the United States for years do not support open immigration of newer Latin Americans. There are complex issues of nationalism and legality, and I am not presuming to judge or criticize diverse views. Some of these attitudes may reflect an “I’ve got mine” attitude or a desire to belong or look down on others though. I do not know.
The statute he cites is from 1366, during a brief period of attempting to curtail marriage between English plantation magnates in Ulster and Irish native nobles. This was well before any concept of “race” existed so you’ll have to get pretty deep into the specific circumstances of the time to figure out why Lionel of Antwerp was so invested in outlawing this practice. By the 16th century intermarriage between English and Irish aristocrats was extremely commonplace, and no more general ban on ethnic intermarriage ever existed, nor could it have, since the English church and state did not routinely regulate marriages of non-nobles until the late 17th century - until that time, peasants were married because they said they were and started living and reproducing together.
I am a member of this “community” (well I’m not in Vancouver). And I can guarantee that many of them consider themselves to be white, of Portuguese ancestry. This is against all evidence, but enables us to look down on other South Asians and oppose immigration by those people.
Similarly I know Brazilian-, Cuban- and Venezuelan immigrants who believe they are white while the Salvadorans, Nicaraguans and Hondurans coming over now are not. Two of the three were here without proper documentation at one point or another. The other is a child of someone who washed up in Florida!
The ability of people to self-identify as the “in” group cannot be overestimated.
The Portuguese, unlike the British, wanted the people of India in their colonies to absorb their culture. That’s why people in Goa, even if they are completely of Indian ancestry, often have Portuguese names and are Catholic. The Brits, on the other hand, had no problem with the Indians in their colonies keeping their names and their religions.
How do you explain Anglo Indians, then :
I doubt many of the Irish would agree with you. At least, it’s a hell of a lot more complex than that.
Sorry missed the edit window:
This is what Mark Twain had to say about British Christian Missionaries in ONE town (Benares) in India, in 1897 :
" But a little group of missionaries have taken post at its base, and they have hopes. There are the Baptist Missionary Society, the Church Missionary Society, the London Missionary Society, the Wesleyan Missionary Society, and the Zenana Bible and Medical Mission. They have schools and the principal work seems to be among the children. And no doubt that part of the work prospers best, for grown people everywhere are always likely to cling to the religion they were brought up in. ”
- Mark Twain in Following the Equator
Only 2.3% of Indians are Christian. The only places where Christians are a substantial part of the populace in India are Nagaland, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Manipur, Goa, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Kerala, and Arunachal Pradesh. Goa accounts for the majority of the population in those parts of India. It would take me a while to put together all the statistics, but I’ve been told that the parts of India once ruled by Portugal have a much larger proportion of Christians (and specifically Catholics), while the parts once ruled by the U.K. have a relatively smaller proportion of Christians (apparently about 2% in the formerly British parts). Similarly, a larger proportion of the population in the parts of India ruled by Portugal took on Portuguese names than the the population in the parts of India ruled by the British took on English names. I was talking about a relative difference, not an absolute one.
Also, just because a government takes an official position of letting the locals keep their culture, doesn’t mean that you won’t have any individual missionaries deciding otherwise. And Christian missionaries in India probably predate British rule, anyway: Some of those Indian Christians might have deep roots.
My understanding is that the apostle Thomas traveled to India in the first century AD, so I think you could say Christians have a long history in India.
Not from the lack of trying by Christians. Again Twain says this :
"“At home, people wonder why Christianity does not make faster progress in India. They hear that the Indians believe easily, and that they have a natural trust in miracles and give them a hospitable reception. Then they argue like this: since the Indian believes easily, place Christianity before them and they must believe; confirm its truths by the biblical miracles, and they will no longer doubt. The natural deduction is, that as Christianity makes but indifferent progress in India, the fault is with us: we are not fortunate in presenting the doctrines and the miracles.
“But the truth is, we are not by any means so well equipped as they think. We have not the easy task that they imagine. To use a military figure, we are sent against the enemy with good powder in our guns, but only wads for bullets; that is to say, our miracles are not effective; the Hindoos do not care for them; they have more extraordinary ones of their own. All the details of their own religion are proven and established by miracles; the details of ours must be proven in the same way."
This being GQ, I request a cite and am finding it hard to believe what has been “told to you”. I grew up in a small down in the smack middle of India, went to Catholic School established in 1872, we had/have a vibrant Anglo Indian Community (not just Catholics but Baptists, and the whole spectrum). Had many classmates with last names like Callaghan, Samuel, George, Matthew, …
I understand what you are saying, but my personal observation is contrary.
Also, to clarify , the East India Company was running things in India till 1857, not the Government. The British Government took over only after the first Indian war of Independence.
And Christianity goes way back in India. Many Indians believe that St Casper, a Magi / Wise Man was a Hindu Person - they guy who gave frankincense to Mother Mary.
There are 6 million St. Thomas Christians in India today, who trace their community back to the 1st century.
There was a Jewish community living in India at that time, and presumably St. Thomas went to visit them specifically, and managed to convert them.
Their style of Christianity is a version of Eastern Orthodox, not western Christianity.