If you get a few minutes, please read the following short excerpt from a commentary on immigration. When you are done, read my comments at the bottom. Make sure you read the excerpt first, otherwise my remarks will make little sense.

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"On arrival in America, Hispanics encountered new struggles. The American people had kept old prejudices alive and these included prejudices against the Hispanics. These stemmed from pre-existing sentiments about Catholicism and the Hispanic culture...Poverty was not the only factor forcing Hispanics to stay in the slums, shanties and cellars they were also considered bad for the neighborhood as they were unfamiliar with the conveniences of plumbing and running water. Their living conditions bred disease and ultimately death ...Hispanics were concentrated at the lowest rungs of the employment ladder, often in jobs considered too unsafe..... Subsequently, Hispanic employment was often restricted to the docks and other areas involving a high risk of injury. Hispanic men were locked in employment as unskilled laborers while women were employed as domestic servants. Their low level jobs and salaries created a vicious circle of under-education and poor employment.

The city... was an established home of anti-Hispanic feeling. This can be largely accredited to the large numbers of Hispanic immigrants that made their home in that city. ...It was estimated that nearly a third of (the) population were foreign-born Hispanics. (It) was so Hispanic it was dubbed by one visitor as "the Mexico of America". This caused a great deal of fear because people were afraid they would be overrun by Hispanic immigrants and they allowed political powers to be bred from it. The....party rose to prominence at the zenith of .....anti-Hispanic feeling.... The party was opposed to foreign immigration, especially Hispanics and believed that "Americans must rule America." .....Four years after it was founded, (it) boasted over one million members and had elected eight governors, more than 100 congressmen, the mayors of (several cities) as well as thousands of lesser officials throughout the country. Once in power, the party passed a series of laws aimed specifically at the Hispanic population,.... deporting poor Hispanics back to Mexico."

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I am sure none of you found this even vaguely unusual, since little editorials and commentaries of this sort pop up around the country daily. You probably have assumed that the city in question is LA, or Phoenix, or Dallas or Miami or some other city with a large Hispanic population. Depending on your politics, each of you probably has a different reaction to the sentiments expressed. These might range from "Well, it's their own fault, they should have stayed home where they belong." to "How sad that our government isn't doing more to help those people."

Surprisingly, politics is not the point. The point is that this article was not orginally about any city with a large Hispanic population, nor is it about Hispanics at all. This article was actually written about Irish immigrants in the 1840's and 1850's. The city is Boston.

I took the liberty of substituting Hispanic for Irish, and "the Mexico of America" for "the Dublin of America". The party in question were the Know Nothings, who ran almost exclusively on an anti-immigration platform targeting Irish in particular. In the mid-1800's the Irish were the unwanted, undocumented, non English-speaking (roughly 50% spoke Irish) immigrants, fleeing a ruined, impovershed economy by any means possible. Smuggling Irish immigrants was a time honored tradition in Boston that continued up to this century. In 1985 the Irish formed the largest group of undocumented aliens in the Boston area.

Many of my ancestors were Irish, which is true of most Anglo Americans. If you aren't of Irish descent, chances are you have friends or in-laws who are. How odd to think we were once reviled as the scum of the earth and the ruin of all that was decent and good about American culture.

So today cities argue over whether or not to have a Cinco de Mayo celebration, and March 17th, St Patrick's Day, is a legal holiday in the city of Boston.

I doubt this will change your opinions on immigrants, nor did I expect it to. But it does give you a glimpse of the future when all of our opinions, whatever they are, will seem just as quaint and outdated as those of 1841.

Dr. Gregory 

PS The Internet and Google can lead you to hundreds of sites about the Irish of the mid-19th century. Their living conditions and treatment were actually far worse than what Hispanics face today, as there were no laws on the books to protect then against blatant discrmination. Some sources indicate an 80% infant mortality rate among Irish immigrants.