Anonymous OP 8w

1840: The best guess of when my first American ancestor’s wife was born. Her first appearance on the US Census claims she would’ve been born in 1840, but the next Census and all following ones provide an age that would’ve meant an 1845 birth year.

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Anonymous OP 8w

Immigration: The exact year and method my family immigrated is unknown. All boat methods for the man’s name don’t have the right age, and immigration from the Canadian border remains undocumented until well after the family is established. Both relatives have ordinary first names and I cannot find a marriage certificate for them in the US or Ireland so I can’t pursue the maternal side either.

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Anonymous OP 8w

Cause of Immigration: Most likely the famine in Ireland. The timeframe adds up, and “famine” is inaccurate. Ireland’s famine was a systematic attempt at genocide by the British.

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Anonymous OP 8w

Life in America: Not much I could find about their life. The man was likely a stonemason based on the city’s directory. Their son, my 3x great grandfather, was a radio operator. One census lists that they had a house servant. It’s worth noting that they settled down in a Northern State and that the servant was listed as Irish descent on the Census. Most of their descendants remained in the city, with myself still living 10 minutes away from where the man is buried.

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Anonymous OP 8w

Events they lived through: Forced conscription was a big issue in major US immigration port cities. Many Irish immigrants were taken immediately after they were processed and sent to the front lines. One Irish defector in the Mexican-American war is held as a hero in Mexico.

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Anonymous OP 8w

Events pt. 2: The Know-Nothing party were a branch of Democrats (pre-party flip) who disliked Catholic allegiance to the Pope, claiming it was unpatriotic. These mostly Protestant people firebombed Catholic churches and rioted against America’s growing Catholic population from nations like Ireland and Italy. They were exceptionally bad in my city, and the stories of my 4x great grandparents actually reached me through oral storytelling almost 200 years later.

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Anonymous OP 8w

Irish Stereotypes: This one’s gonna sound familiar so listen up. Irish were called lazy but also apparently took up all the jobs. They were called violent for not putting up with Know-Nothing violence. They were drunks (honestly it runs in the family so kinda true). They had too many kids. Honestly the last one is kinda funny bc many Americans just kept giving their kids the same name until one survived. So I guess we were just really good at keeping our kids alive??

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Anonymous OP 8w

Anyway, to conclude, Catholic and Jewish immigrants were not seen as “white” until shortly before WWII. Eugenics and forced sterilization laws made it that way, with us only being included to not appear similar to the Nazis (guess who their doctrine is based on…). Today we’re accepted as an integral backbone of American history. I didn’t make this to say “we had it just as bad as this or that group.” I acknowledge many groups had it objectively worse.

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Anonymous OP 8w

The main purpose is to highlight the struggles of immigrants today, primarily from Latin American countries. I stand in solidarity with these people, protest, and fight for them to be afforded the same rights that my ancestors were granted. Immigrants aren’t a country sending their worst, they’re people just like you and I. They’re people trying to leave broken homes and start a new life in a nation that their parents and grandparents told them stories of.

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Anonymous OP 8w

If you ever got a headache from our fuckass bureaucratic agencies such as filing your taxes or a legal dispute, you can empathize with them. You know how tedious and annoying it is. You know the frustration and confusion that comes with any documents in America. It’s not as easy as showing Ellis Island workers that you have $25 and walking out the door anymore.

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