Feliz Día de San Patricio!

Today, there’s nothing quite so quintessentially American as celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day.  It has always had little to do with the British Bishop and former slave who drove the Druids (AKA “the snakes”) out of the Emerald Isle, but being proud of our nation’s and/or one’s personal Irish heritage.  Beyond just getting inebriated on green beer in a crowded pub, let us reflect for a moment on two elements of Irish-American history – immigration (Irish & otherwise) and the 1916 Easter Uprising. 

On immigration.  In the wake of the Great Irish Famine – what Stephen Colbert once accurately described as England’s version of the “final solution” – a mass migration not seen since colonial days began.  Many emigrated without even knowing English, still speaking a rural dialect of Gaelic.  The Irish Catholics experienced the “Nativists” movement, the original anti-immigrants.  The Irish were called Papists, monkeys, muckers (those who shovel cow feces for work), and slurs that civilized people dare not repeat.  President Fillmore even proposed deporting every Irish immigrant.  So began infamous American tradition of discriminating against New Americans.  German, Jewish, Italian, Asian, Muslim, Latino Americans, and many others would all suffer the same. 

Today, it is the Latinos turn.  They’re accused of and/or ridiculed for taking working-class jobs from Americans, for having those lowest of manual-labor jobs, their different culture, not speaking English, their remaining loyalty to the “old country”, of coming here without documentation and not abiding by the absurdly complicated and costly process now required of today’s working-class migrant.  They are also stereotyped for having large families.  Is any of this starting to sound familiar to you, Irish-Americans?  How about you, Italian-Americans, AKA “WOP’s”, AKA “without papers”?  The WOP term always made me laugh when 2008 GOP Presidential candidate, Tom Tancredo, who is likely the descendant of illegal Italian immigrants, campaigned ravenously against illegal immigration. 

This isn’t some liberal plea.  It is an acceptance of fact.  While currently the ethnic majorities are German-Americans and Scottish/Irish-Americans (no longer WASP’s), it has already been projected that by around 2050, whites will finally be in the minority in America, and Latinos will be in the majority.  Hence, getting Americans over xenophobia is not only a righteous act; it is a pragmatic necessity.

Here’s the great cliché example: an exemplar of the author’s statement, “families are always rising and falling in America.”  In 1849, a young man of course named Patrick moved to Boston, as poor and penniless as any immigrant.  He worked hard and had a family, and he faced the same discrimination that foreigners always do.  His son P.J. became a successful bar owner, businessman, and state senator.  P.J.’s son, Joseph, married the daughter of “Honey Fitz”, the first Irish Mayor of Boston.  And so Camelot was born.  In about a hundred years time, not only was poor ole Pat’s family one of the wealthiest and most famous in the country, his great-grandson, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, became President.  This is American dream at its finest, until the “O’Bamas”. 

Think about that the next time you want to tell Jose, Jacinto, or Maria that they should go back to Mexico or South America.  Their descendent may very well be a future President.  Which is why you should support DREAM Act related legislation.  Just because every other immigrant population has had to suffer, doesn’t mean we have to keep making it hard on the little person and his/her kids.  Why shouldn’t the child of a construction worker or maid get a helping hand in getting a college education?  We are already putting these kids through K-12, why not the rest of the way?  This law is based is on proving they’re already paying taxes, on top of many other reasonable federal and state requirements.  Either we want an under-class, or a wholly educated society.  Choose. 

Secondly is the Easter Uprising.  It was Easter Monday (yes, that’s a real thing), 1916; World War I was full swing.  America was being pressured to enter the war.  Meanwhile, in Dublin a couple thousand patriots had formed the Irish Citizens Army and the IRA and attacked numerous British government buildings.  This original “Occupy Dublin” lasted 10 days.  Beyond the initial element of surprise, it was a military blunder, even for Irish history.  They had no heavy artillery.  They wasted funds on uniforms, rather than just using armbands like the Bolsheviks a year later.  They failed to capture the main target, Dublin Castle, and what they did capture (a post office, City Hall, the Four Courts legal facility, and my personal favorite, a biscuit factory) was not defensible against the mighty British Army.  Nonetheless, 1916 was a catalyst for the rebellion of 1919-1922, which led to the Irish Free State, and in 1949, one of the first English speaking and truly sovereign Republics since the US. 

What does this have to do with America?  Well many of us would not exist if were not for this rebellion.  How so?  Among those who were executed as martyrs, was the main leader of the IRA and ICA, James Connolly.  He was a Scottish-born (in the Irish slums of Edinburgh, the son of Irish migrants) self-taught scholar, author, editor, publisher, orator, feminist, former British soldier and deserter, activist, political candidate, and labor organizer.  From 1902-1910, he worked in the USA (yes, yet another immigrant, twice over) as a lecturer, political staffer, labor organizer, and writer.  He drove religious, racial, and gender divisiveness out of the labor and other leftist movements as if he was a liberal St Patrick, as well as exposing corruption within the AFL.  So revered was this “Apostle of Freedom” and the Irish cause, that following his execution, organized labor and countless others stood along side Irish-Americans to force the Wilson Administration to not support the English Crown in World War I for another year, until the Lusitania sinking.  So think about it, had we entered The Great War a year earlier, many of us would not have ever been born, as many of our ancestors would had died before they could have had children.  Now we need a comparable movement before we go to war against Iran. 

Have fun this Saturday.  Drink & merrily sing the old songs.  Don your best green clothes, or wear orange like Northern Irish Loyalists if you want to be an ironic, nerdy jerk.  Remember, we are a nation of immigrants, both those of old and the new ones.  All have come here seeking refuge from their bleak past and a brighter future for their progeny and themselves.  The multiculturalism that stems from our great American melting pot is what makes us unique in the world.  Let us be better than our predecessors, and accept nuestro hermanos y hermanas latinos for what they our – New Americans.  Support legislation like the DREAM Act.  Do not allow the irrational fears of lesser men bring the rest of us down.  Let’s remember and celebrate the great immigrants who brought change to wherever they went. Personally, I look forward to the days when I’m an old man, and 16 de Septiembre (the real Mexican Independence Day) y Día de los Muertos are as popular as St Patty’s and Halloween.  May we all be Irish on March 17th, and may we all be American the rest of the year. 

Let us toast to James Connolly http://youtu.be/MemUQ1hM0Ps and all the glorious martyrs who sacrificed for freedom & liberty around the world!  We’ll ignore that he was a teetotaler & prohibitionist. 

Truly yours,

R. Ascal

PS Fun fact: there is a distinctly American tradition that our flag does not get lowered or dipped when before a foreign head of state.  Why’s this?  In the opening ceremony of the 1908 London Olympic Games, Irish-American Olympian & standard-bearer, Ralph Rose, refused to dip “Old Glory” before Edward VII.  As his team captain, Martin Sheridan, later declared, “This flag dips to no earthly King!"