Takaki Ch. 6 “Emigrants from Erin”

In Takaki Ch. 6, he discusses the struggles of the Irish and England’s takeover of their land. Between 1815 and 1920 five and a half million Irish emigrated to America. The English took over 14 percent and made their land into room for their cattle, forcing the Irish to migrate to America. They were completely poverty stricken by the British colonization. Their agriculture was completely taken over by cattle. There was extremely less work for the cattle than the crops. Religion was also changed in Ireland; they were changed from Protestants to Catholic. The Irish were strictly living off their potato crops. Suddenly a little known fungus appeared and changed the history of the Irish. The disease destroyed about 40 percent of the potato crops in 1845. The disease began to return every year. This time period then became to be called the “Great Famine”. During this time thousands of families were evicted from their homes. The British also exported the most cattle that could have fed half of the Irish community. Their reason for coming to American was for survival, or they would have to suffer destitution and death. When they came to America they were given jobs as the manual laborers; railway construction, factories, mining. The Irish were seen as nothing but “dogs…despised and kicked around” (147). They were pitted against other laborers of different races such as the Chinese and the Japanese. Irish then found themselves being compared to blacks. Sometimes the immigrants were even described as “Irish niggers” (150). In Ireland, the slaves to the British were the Irish and this is the same as the Africans were to the Americans. Takaki then mentions how after a while, the Irish began to try to consider themselves to be white and for their whiteness. The Irish then began to degrade against the blacks. In backlash, the blacks referred to the Irish man as “white niggers” (153). They claimed that the Irish were taking the jobs away from them. Takaki then mentions the difference between domestic work and factory work. The domestic workers were being paid more and were more stable working for families. The industrial workers were having more dangerous jobs that the masters did not want their slaves doing. Takaki then ends the chapter on the strategy the Irish had coming to America. They worked harder to find their children a great education. They mostly settled within the cities along with being highly unionized in the factories. They were also eligible for citizenship and clearly already spoke English. The Irish even possessed suffrage unlike the blacks.
There was a relationship between the Irish and the blacks and Takaki makes a clear distinction between that in this chapter. There was obviously the huge competition between them and the Irish were given the more dangerous jobs. Both groups were considered the lowest in the country. But the Irish were trying to capitalize themselves on their “whiteness”.