Similar to many of my classmates, I was also surprised to learn about the young couples and individuals that came to America, instead of families. I suppose it’s because we often associate starting a new life by moving the entire family. I was particularly interested in the ‘Runners’ that basically scammed the new Italian Immigrants off the boats. I wasn’t sure if this was mentioned in the presentation but I did some research and there wasn’t a lot of information but these ‘Runners’ were often the same nationality and spoke in Gaelic. This is another example of the cycle of oppression that we talk about in class. These runners were probably in the position of these immigrants when they first arrived but instead of being scammed, they’re now the scammers.
I’ve also started to notice that there are many ‘cycles’ in which the problem was just a solution to the first problem. For the Irish, many turned to crime because they weren’t able to get jobs. They weren’t able to get jobs because they were discriminated for being very different which gave them a reputation for being criminals.
