Quinn makes a comparison between slave trade and the holocaust and famine emigration early in the essay on to reject it later. Why?
In his essay, “In Search of the Banished Children,” Peter Quinn explores his family’s history in hopes of recovering his the fine points of his lost Irish heritage. Early on, he notes historian James Scally’s comparison between the magnitude of the Irish immigration and “the slave trade or the boxcars of the Holocaust” (48). Here, he illustrates the widespread migration to America that occurred during all three events. In the remainder of his essay, he goes on to prove that, despite the extent of the calamity that the Irish had faced, with the passage of time, there are few traces of personal burden caused by the Irish famine today.
Quinn states that the Irish American struggle was muffled as slavery and the Holocaust eclipsed the anti-Irish movement (50). He writes, “[unlike] the turning of a natural catastrophe to the brutal purposes of social engineering, the Holocaust was a death sentence leveled against every Jewish man, woman, child under German rule” (53). Quinn does not aim to downplay the famine, but rather to demonstrate that although time may not heal, it does indeed mask. As other issues in America were brought to attention, the Irish slums and the were clouded. Today, we all openly recognize the tragedies that occurred during the slave trade and the Holocaust. They are a huge part of our nation’s history, while the famine is less emphasized in a general American history class. Perhaps this is because the Irish did not have a tattooed number on their bodies or a separate faith or darkly pigmented skin to be easily identified as a victim. Quinn recognizes that with the coming generations, the communal memories that he sought were blurred both intentionally and unintentionally. Intentionally, by the first immigrant groups in attempt to move on and create a better life for their families. Unintentionally by children who did not pass down the stories of their elders. By default, the hardships that Quinn’s Irish ancestors faced were no longer personally relevant to modern day Irish Americans. Now, “it is impossible to tell that [their] legs were ever broken at all (56).
