Ethnic Groups

The ethnic group I belong to is the Irish-Americans. This group of people immigrated to America in the 1816 (Rapple, n.d.). Six thousand immigrants sailed for America in search of a better place to live. This was not this first time an Irish-American had set foot in America. Rapple (n.d.), “Galaway-born William Ayers was one of Columbus’s crew in 1492 when he discovered America.” Two years later over 3,000 Irish labourers were working on the Erie Canal (Rapple, n.d.). In 1845-1851 one of the most severe diasaters in Irish history triggered the greatest departure of Irish immigrants to America. A census carried out in 1850 revealed that there were 961,719 people in the United States that had been born in Ireland. Rapple (n.d.), “As many as 1.5 million individuals perished of starvation and the diverse epidemics that accompanied the famine. A great number of the survivors emigrated, many of them to the United States. From the beginning of the famine in the mid-1840s until 1860 about 1.7 million Irish immigrated to the United States, mainly from the provinces of Connaught and Munster. By 1880 more single women than single men were immigrants. It has been estimated that from 1820 to 1900 about four million Irish immigrated to the United States.”

Irish-Americans have been present in America for hundreds of years. This ethnic group has had more opportunities than any other group in America. Each generation has become more integrated with dominant culture. It has been more difficult for the number of Catholic Irish who came into America in the post-famine decades to coalesce with the mainstream (Rapple, n.d.). They have had their times of stereotyping from England. They characterized the Irish as being drunk, semi-savages, pugnacious, and this endured for the rest of the 19th century. Cartoonist have depicted the Irish as a small, ugly, simian creature with liquor. While looking at information on my ethnic group I found this and thought it was nice:

"The first...