Posted by I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means for a person or group of people to be included, to be truly accepted at the table in the USA. And the trials and tribulations that they often have to undertake to prove their “worth”.
Most groups that have come to this country (willingly, let’s say) since its inception have spent some time in a pariah status. This is especially true in the stories of Irish and Roman Catholic immigration. There were literally debates on the floors of Congress about whether the Irish were human enough to be given the franchise. People legitimately wondered if redheads had the mental capacity necessary to participate in civic life.
Immigration quotas in the 1920’s targeted southern European countries in large part to limit Roman Catholic immigration. Italian immigrants were viewed suspiciously because their religious allegiance to the Vatican was thought to interfere with newfound civic allegiance to the USA.
To their credit, the Irish often took such defamation on the chin (literally?). Notre Dame likely adopted the nickname Fighting Irish to neutralize the oft-repeated slur that Irish Catholics were naught but drunken brawlers. Catholic Charities exists as a force because Catholics were locked out of many existing civic institutions and charities but still felt called by God to do good works. President John F. Kennedy’s election was not notable because he was good-looking and screwing Marilyn Monroe on the side (though both of those were true) but because he was the first Catholic to be elected to the office. It was a big deal! And everyone (supposedly) can be Irish on St. Patrick’s Day.
Once upon a time, I just assumed this is the way with any new immigrant group. A period of alienation, putting their heads down and grinding it out and then eventual acceptance. You have to be the butt of the joke and prove you can take it before you can be in on the joke or make jokes yourself. So classically Amurrican, inn’it. And so that history is used against those who protest against exclusion from the institutions and events of our new homeland.
“It was hard for us so it shouldn’t be easier for you, ya brown snowflake! Shut up and let us tell you how it’s done!”
Why? Buried deep within this triumphant story is the everyday hardships that the Irish and Catholics (and other groups) have unfairly faced on their way to being seen as Americans, period, not just as “good” Americans. It’s nigh impossible to be fully part of a new home so why not make life a little easier if/when possible? Maybe it’s not just a funny joke that the Irish were once seen as subhuman.
We’re all better off including new people just because it’s the right thing to do. I’m not eliding the difficulty in changing existing power structures that don’t seem to be able to include more people. Nor is it easy to make space if individuals previously haven’t had to think about who besides themselves is out there or if they fear there might not be enough room, financial or otherwise, at the table. But no, sometimes the (pumpkin) pie looks like it’s shrinking when, in fact, it is getting bigger.
The long-term benefits of a society that welcomes and includes all groups without subjecting them to a hurtful or unfair acclimation period, that casts and celebrate differences rather than always mashing us all together, far outweigh any temporary discomfort.
Life is tough, no matter the circumstances.
If immigrant groups and individuals protest against not being included at the table, we’re not asking for life to be made easy. Life will still find some other way to be cruel to every group and every individual person who comes to this country. Or was born here. (And who’s not part of the top 0.01%).
In the end, life gives no quarter. But it’s not a zero-sum game.
* Of course, Asians and Latinos as a whole and the individual ethnicities under those umbrellas have encountered discrimination but I’m using Catholics & the Irish as examples because I personally know that history better and they are now more accepted than Asians or Latinos.
