Discussion & Reflection

Lina Mohamed: Journal Entry 2- Summary of “The First Alien Wave”

Racial differentiation was established in America for a long time. This made it very difficult for non-Americans to adapt to society when they were not accepted. Problems between different religions made it even harder because Americans were extremely non accepting of Catholics and denied citizenship to Catholics. Irish immigrants were mainly white and they used their “whiteness” to an advantage by holding themselves above African Americans and Chinese people. On the other hand, the poor and ugly Irish immigrants did not have this advantage and because of this, they were compared to African Americans and apes.

Irish natives lived on potatoes and when the famine took over, many died but more of them moved to the United States for survival. Thomas Carlyle was a essayist in Victorian England and he was extremely influential in his writing. He wrote a lot about the Irish and made harsh comments about them such as describing Ireland “a human dog kennel”. Carlyle turned the Irish into animals into his writings and similarly, Charles Kingsley called them “white chimpanzees”. Stories were published to degrade Catholicism and the churches were depicted as “sexually immoral”. Soon this hatred was seen everywhere; in newspapers, books, magazines and this caused anti-Catholic hatred to increase as it became a widespread theme. This made the Irish immigrants and their situations even more desperate.

The U.S. census of 1850 declared the number of immigrants and Irish immigrants were a huge amount, 961,719. This huge amount did not mean anything because the Irish were still treated horribly and were continuously ridiculed in cartoons, jokes, and essays. Cartoons, especially, enforced certain stereotypes about Irish. These stereotypes emphasized that the Irish were often apelike, always poor, ugly, drunken, violent, superstitious, etc. Parallels continued to be formed between the Irishmen to the Negro. “In 1876, for instance, Nast pictured stereotypical southern freedmen and northern Irishmen as equally unsuited for the vote during Reconstruction after the American Civil War.” Irish soon, turned on the African Americans in rejection of this widely spread Black-Irish likeness.

Religion was more important in Britain and Ireland than the United States. Religious wars were fought in England for a long time but United States had no wars fought over religion.However, around 1844, violence was on this rise against the Irish as their residences and Catholic churches were burned down. Riots related to these fires lasted three days and killed thirteen people and wounding fifty. Most of these violent crimes against Catholics were unorganized and unplanned. Mob violence grew worse and one mob almost killed a priest in Maine. The “Know-Nothings” continued to oppose political corruption and kept Catholic immigrants their main targets.

A bill was soon put out to ban people who were not born in the United States to hold political office and to extend the naturalization period. These preventions prevented many working class men to vote which was the goal of the Know-Nothings. Ulysses S. Grant intended to control all Jews in Tennessee no matter who they were. However, President Lincoln quickly overruled this order but not before families had already been dislocated.

Eventually, the “political tensions” destroyed the Know-nothingism as slavery. Slavery issues split this groups’s movement but they later rejoined the Democrats. This split did not mean much because they intended to continue their mission and nativism. Eventually, the worst part of this violence and hatred associated with the Catholics in the United States ended but ended slowly. However, Irish Catholics did remain “a race apart- Celts”. The Celt and African remained two inferior races for a long time but “at least the Celts had their whiteness”.

Y Boodhan: Blog 2 – Informative Summary of “The First Alien Wave”

The following is an informative summary of chapter 9 from Nell Irvin Painter’s The History of White People:

The 19th century was was a period filled with religious tension between the Irish Catholics and Protestant Americans. Despite their “whiteness,” the Irish Catholics who migrated in large numbers after 1830, faced social and political antagonism from Americans, largely due to their religion. In fact, anti-Catholic legislation was prevalent — forcing Catholics to renounce allegiance to the pope and pay taxes to support Protestant churches.

The large influx of Irish immigrants into the United States during the potato famine created social hostility. The prevailing assumption was that the Irish were racially inferior and had unmatched degradation. At the time, influential and educated people like Thomas Carlyle, Charles Kingsley and Robert Knox all termed the Irish as animals — bred to be controlled and lacking historical agency.

The large Irish Catholic presence in the United States even sparked anti-Catholic literature, journals, newspapers and organizations. The circulating idea in these journals and organizations was that the Irish Catholics were a threat to Protestantism. Among the many anti-Catholic works was Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk which was intended to taint Irish Catholic disposition and portray the Catholic Church as inherently sexually immoral.

Most Americans thought that the objective of the Irish Catholics was to subvert the Protestant virtues of American democracy. Therefore, people like Lyman Beecher, Yale-educated Presbyterian minister, thought that the poor Irish Catholics should not have a political role in either the form of holding office or voting. The Irish were seen as unfit for such roles.

In fact, the Catholic Irish were stereotyped to be brawling, lazy, crime-ridden drunks and were eventually termed “Paddies.” This resulted in the condemnation of the Irish Catholics by people like renowned author Ralph Waldo Emerson, who “excluded” the Irish from the Caucasian race and viewed the Irish population as miserable and poor. Emerson was not alone. Authors and cartoonists at the time used the Irish as a laughing stock for demeaning jokes and exaggerated cartoons which reinforced the Paddy stereotype.

Although some abolitionists explored and recognized the oppression of the Irish and the similarity in the oppression of Negroes, the Irish immigrants in the United States refuted this comparison due to the differences in the skin colors between them and the Negroes. In an effort to distinguish themselves from the Negroes and seek “white” fortune, Irish voters supported the pro-slavery Democratic Party and lashed out against Negroes in the form of riots.

The Irish even seeked further distinction through Celtic Irish culture and literature. In the mid-nineteenth century, works and poetry of Celtic history, literature and race appeared. Although these works were not necessarily purely objective and in favor of the Celtic Irish, they received acceptance among the Irish because they were less patronizing than earlier works, like those of Thomas Carlyle. Through these works, the Irish Celts sought to find qualities for greatness.

Despite their efforts, the opposition of Irish Catholics was still common due to rising nativism in the United States. Soon, antagonism toward the Irish Catholic turned violent.  Irish Catholic churches and residents were attacked. In addition, the violent anti-Catholic political party known as the Know-Nothings began to rise. In a series of violent acts, the Know-Nothings raged a religious war on the Irish Catholics.

Eventually the collapse of the Know-Nothings and the 1884 election of Grover Cleveland lessened the violent anti-Catholic movements in the United States. However, the white, Irish Catholics were still recognized as a different and inferior race.

Analysis of In Search of the Banished Children

In his first sentence of “In Search of the Banished Children, Peter Quinn defines “memory” as he has learned it in pursuing his personal history. Quinn’s search for the facts of his family story led him to conclude that these memories transcend his surname and belong to a larger picture of the Irish spirit. His family history is “tribal, communal.”

Quinn connects his first sentence to the body of the essay by concluding with the story of the old man. Stating that the old man had “the face of Robert Manning”, his great-great uncle, Quinn likens his story, whose legs seem as if they were never broken when he dances, to his life growing up; his parents never often spoke of their struggles to achieve success in America, but rather simply enjoyed it. Thus, the essay’s definition of memory as tribal and communal relates his family history to paint the picture of Irish pride; that although each of the Irish families endured a great and unique story of suffering to be where they are, today they stand without scars. Similar to the old man’s image of health while dancing, Quinn never heard family lore about his ancestors’ struggles, but rather was taught by example to live each moment purely in the present. The first sentence of Quinn’s essay and the story of the old man emphasize that memory of the Irish is not a story told, a set of dates, or an item of sentimental value. Quinn goes to great lengths to demonstrate that of all the Irish families he knows, not one possesses an artifact or object from the Famine migration. Rather, their memory is imbued in their blood, and displays itself in the fighting spirit and resiliency of the Irish today.

(Posted late due to issue with website)

Famine Irish in Comparison to Other Immigrants

  • Quinn makes a comparison between the slave trade and the Holocaust and the Famine emigration only to reject it later on, why?

Peter Quinn’s first reference to the slave trade and holocaust was to show the difference between the migration of the Irish Potato Famine immigrants as compared to the migration of immigrants to the United States in other situations. He compares the size and impact of the slave trade and Holocaust to that of the Irish Famine, rather than the reasons why the Famine Irish left to the reason why the slaves left Africa and the Jewish left Europe. Quinn tries to make a point that the Irish were involuntarily forced to leave their homelands just like the slaves and the Jews. That is the reason why the “sheer volume of passage” (p 46) of the Irish migration was unlike any America had seen before. Quinn is saying that the only thing similar to it in size was the migration of the slave trade and Holocaust Jews. In other periods of immigration, the migrants had more of a choice and therefore there were less quantities of them.

Later on, Quinn doesn’t necessarily reject his previous comparison between the Holocaust Jews and Famine Irish, instead he contrasts the two migrations. In a way he just seems to be covering himself so that his point isn’t taken in an incorrect nature. He acknowledges that the real reason the two groups left their homes are not on the same level. Overall Quinn just wants to let people know that the reason we don’t have so many first hand accounts from the Famine Irish is because just like the people of any group who has faced adversity to its worst degree (e.g. the Jews and African Americans), they would rather be silent and not relive those horrific moments. All we have is the facts and the history, Quinn wants to know the memories because it is from those that we can characterize history.

“Memory is unique to each of us,…”

Peter Quinn begins his essay “In Search of Banished Children” by describing how memories are one of a kind to every single person since they shape us differently.  In the essay, Quinn mentions how “the event that first bought [his] family to America [was] the Great Famine of the 1840s” (43). Quinn is aware of how his family came to the United States since he knows the broad history and shares the same reasoning as many other Irish immigrants; however, he can not relate to the event based on memory because he has not experienced it himself, therefore it does not shape him emotionally. The memories of immigration to Quinn are “an intravenous inheritance” (42) rather than something he has actually experienced firsthand.

Quinn also mentions his father’s recounting of how Quinn’s great-grandfather and great-uncle almost reunited during the Civil War (45). However, upon hearing the story, Quinn realizes that though the story may be true, but he believes it as more of a “romantic embellishment” (45) in his relatives’ lives. Though besides some stories being more embellished than others, there are stories that have not been told because they do not want to be recalled. For example, Quinn notes how even if there was an opportunity for a survivor of the Irish Famine to tell his accounting, it is unsure where many would (47). To some, the Irish Famine does not need to be recalled because of how it forced people to emigrate to the United States because there was no food. To most of the Irish immigrants of the time, living through the Famine was communal –everyone experienced it. There was no need to recall it because the community suffered together. Unlike history, rather than symphatizing with each other, the people shared the fear and health conditions.

Memory unlike history recalls memories that are unique to each person which include all the five senses and emotions. History, on the other hand, is more like a line rather than a ring, meaning that history describes an event in the most straight, general way, whereas memories try to see and link everything about an event together. Quinn started the essay by talking about memories because he wanted to emphasize how difference between memory and history and how much stronger it is than history. Memories do not romanticize emotions, instead they are much more raw. Though, history allows you to be aware of the time period, it will not let you imagine life as a person in the time period, but rather as an onlooker.

 

When Comparing Historical Atrocities

Quinn draws a comparison between the Irish famine to the Holocaust and the slave trade to illustrate how horrific that time in history was. “Given the sheer volume of this passage as well as its nature… bearing more resemblance to the slave trade or the boxcars of the Holocaust than to the routine crossings of a later age” (page 48). He does not further analyze or explain this comparison. However, later on in his writing on page 53, he recounts the comparison of the famine to the Holocaust saying they are “very different events” not to be “confused or equated”.

I believe the initial comparison, written not by him but by historian Robert James Scally, served to illustrate the sheer monstrosity of the famine to those unfamiliar to that part of history. Supposedly, the reader would be well aware of how awful both the African Slave Trade and the Holocaust were, and making that comparison would open their eyes to another horror of history that was the famine. So he included the comparison so that throughout the reading, the reader would open their mind to the severity of the famine. However, Quinn obviously doesn’t agree that the famine and the Holocaust are comparable and simply used the comparison as a tool in the text.

What interests me here is that Quinn takes back the comparison between the Holocaust and the famine, but says nothing about the comparison to the slave trade. Was it that he believed there were somehow more similarities between the slave trade and the famine? Or that he thought of the Holocaust as the more severe historical event and so the more insensitive one to compare? In my opinion, the events are all drastically different. The famine was a terrible situation of pain and turmoil, but at least the starved and desperate Irish migrants had autonomy over themselves and their thoughts. Both Africans and Jews in their respective events were forced into travel and had violent physical and psychological trauma inflicted on them as an “inferior” people. And if either of these two events would be deemed more severe, it could easily be the slave trade because of how long it lasted, how many people were killed, and its devastating lasting effects on the people of the African Diaspora all over the world. If Quinn did not believe the Holocaust and the famine were comparable, surely he would feel the same about the slave trade?

Memory Versus History

Read the 1st  sentence carefully and analyze what bearing does it have on the essay.

Peter Quinn had very little recollection of his ancestors prior to penning this text. The first few words of this piece is, “memory is unique to each of us” which is accurate in many different contexts. What I have experienced in my life is much different than any one else. The story to follow had nothing to do with his firsthand remembrance of events, but rather the investigation into the lives of the people who preceded him. In the same sentence, he makes the argument that memory is inherit, in that it flows through us in our “bloodstream, elixir, narcotic, stimulant, poison, antidote.” This could be interpreted as an innate feeling formed within us before we even see the light of day. He finishes there and turned the text into a first person narrative of his discovery of his family rooting back to Ireland.

There are few sentences in this essay that resemble the poetic language used in the opening one. In fact, the only similar one discusses memory as well, where he states, “Memory is more than a recollection of discrete events … Memory is a reel of endless, haunted gossip, a montage of snippets, remnants, patches…” It captures the attention of his readers, but more importantly, leaves them questioning where he is going with calling memory “an intravenous inheritance.” Basically, he doesn’t see memory as strict as history, but rather the unnoticeable things that could be linked to a specific time. He mentioned when he did this research, he tried to let go of the history behind it. Instead, he wanted to encompass the ordinary of his ancestry. The opening sentence holds much of the story on its shoulders, because without it, it simply becomes another boring tale of how man took the time to learn about his ancestors and now wanted to share those tales with the world. And without it, we wouldn’t understand wholly what Quinn’s intentions were – they weren’t to simply learn about dates and facts, but rather the spirit of the people who down the line created him.

Sticks and Stones

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).

Drawing Parallels and Borders in Atrocities

Quinn draws the comparison between the Holocaust and the famine emigration initially to highlight the impact of the Famine on the Irish population and the magnitude of its catastrophic effect on Irish culture and lifestyle. Quinn’s juxtaposition is based on the fact that both events affected an exorbitantly large amount of people over a prolonged period of time, in a way that completely altered the foundation of the targeted societies. The Famine forced the Irish poor to find assistance from another external source because of England’s lack of concern for a “source of national weakness” (Quinn, 53). The Holocaust both shattered the physical and cultural bases of Jewish life; shifting the focus from living in isolation to surviving from the ashes of near extinction.

However, Quinn later refutes this parallel to draw distinction between what the purpose behind each atrocity was. The Famine started as a natural disaster in Ireland’s main subsistent crop, only to then be used by English aristocracy as an opportunity to dictate Irish populations and policies by hindering them from receiving external assistance for their subsistence strategies. Essentially, the Famine served as a social control on the socio-economic status of the Irish people within the context of the English domain. Additionally, there was no debate as to the extent of damage the famine left the Irish community; a large portion of Irish were lost to the seven-year ordeal. On the other hand, the Holocaust was a premeditated attack on a specific group of people (Jews) in order to completely eliminate the chosen population, otherwise known as genocide. The level of impact here is more much substantial and the intentions of the oppressors are much more actively lethal. There was no question as to what was being done: systematic murder. Survivors and offspring from the event took years to piece together exactly how awful Hitler’s actions were and how exactly it impacted each individual’s life.

Memories Through Ancestry

In the first sentence of “In Search of the Banished Children,” Peter Quinn defines the word memory as “familial, tribal, communal, the seepage into our minds of other memories,” things from our past that are completely unique to each individual and stem from one’s surroundings, namely one’s family. Quinn goes on to describe his upbringing, and how his search for more information on his Irish ancestry began despite his growing up in a “family that asked few questions about the past” (43). Quinn’s roots go back to the Great Famine of the 1840s, but like many descendants of these Famine immigrants, Quinn has no artifacts or family memories from that time period save for certain details about his great-grandfather, Michael Manning, but he even doubts the credibility of those stories. Quinn resolves to find out more about his Irish ancestry despite the “silence” of memories from the time period of the Great Migration. He explores the factual and statistical side found in books and historians, and also goes directly to the source: Skibbereen, Ireland, where he hears a story about an old man that he imagines to be his great grandfather’s brother, Robert Manning.

Quinn is able to come to terms with not knowing the specifics about his ancestry. He may only have generic information about Irish presence in the 1840s, but he grew up surrounded by the influence of the Famine immigrants – the churches, schools, and other organizations founded during the time of the Great Migration. These institutions count as memories for Quinn, and support his definition of memories – entities that stem from one’s surroundings and familial bonds.