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Irish Immigration Essay

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Strolling down the scorching hot sand in Miami Beach, glancing at the diverse crowd from all over the world to come enjoy the beaches exemplifies that America is a melting pot with several of different backgrounds. The free land offers opportunities to a competitive market, which leads to questions of who is worthy of those opportunities and is equality the same thing as free? Multiple ethnic groups from different parts of the world started to come to America in the 19th century. Once Native Americans were kicked out to the west, more land was available to take and own making this America attractive to not only nativists but other groups from different countries. The vision of America indulged those groups to risk their lives and families …show more content…

The Irish wanted to escape from English rule, so what better way to escape from English tyranny and landlords by coming to America where America won against Britain by gaining their own independence. This gave the Irish a chance to be independent and on their own to be successful. Once the Potato Famine occurred in Ireland, millions of Irish immigrants finally migrated to America, overwhelming nativists with the competition of labor increasing. Factory owners knew Irish immigrants would do anything for work so they reduced the pay compared to a nativist and would give them more rigorous tasks. With this, nativist would envy these workers and would create stereotypes by their appearance and behavior. “The Irish immigrant laborers were also believed to be savage and uncivilized, and to lack intelligence and self-control” (Takaki) Irish immigrants were constantly compared to other immigrant groups and not actually seeking to understand them as an individual and a human being rather than dirt. These stereotypes caused several tensions that led to violent altercations between nativists and Irish

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