Shelter Island Reporter editorial: The duty to remember
They were the poorest of the poor, starving, whole families running for their lives, crossing an ocean, trying to escape a catastrophe that had killed more than a million souls. Two million made it out alive to waiting ships, but then many died on the journey to a find a safe harbor.
Overall, when they arrived, they were reviled as not quite human, described by one observer as “brutal, base … creatures that crawl and eat dirt and poison every community they infest.”
Sound familiar? We have a president who has referred to immigrants as “not humans. They’re animals.”
History doesn’t repeat itself, Mark Twain allegedly said, but it often rhymes. We can understand that truth comparing the history of the mid-19th century Irish famine with mass immigration today as millions from Central and South America flee poverty and oppression.
Donald Trump’s first presidential act was an attempt to ban people from our shores because they didn’t have the correct religion (rhyming with anti-Catholic mobs descending on impoverished Irish communities in New York and Philadelphia in ethnic cleansing operations).
Mr. Trump has said he wants “merit-based” immigration — even offering documents to those who pay $5 million — to select only highly-skilled individuals. That would have stopped the Irish, and every other nationality for that matter, from coming, since most of the people arrived with skills limited to subsistence farming.
On this St. Patrick’s Day, it’s more than disheartening to see all-powerful public officials who will proudly wear green and support an inhumane immigration policy.
An Irish-American Chicago alderman told the Irish Times recently: “Being Irish-American has become a benefit to the Irish. In the past being Irish-American was something you had to overcome … You don’t have to stay in shape if you’re not going to fight anybody.”
This year there’s much to celebrate about the long march of an impoverished, oppressed people to prosperity and freedom.
Raise a glass today to St. Patrick’s Day and have fun. Remember where you came from, and those who are on their way.
