How The Irish Overcame Is A Lesson For All

My daughter and I we were joking about the possibility that the International Olympic Committee would be branded racist by Jimmy Carter for rejecting President Obama's bid for Chicago to host the 2016 games. She then remarked how surprised she was to learn from a recent cable television program that the Irish suffered from severe discrimination in the last two centuries. That was hardly news to me as I had once heard someone comment that the Irish were once treated like Puerto Ricans and blacks - especially in Boston, where shops once displayed help-wanted signs that read, "Irish need not apply." An African American panelist on a Sunday talk show attempted to debunk the stereotype of the black criminal population by reminding us that prisons here were built to house the Irish, not the blacks. Then my daughter asked a question that I found rather difficult to answer: "How did that all change?" After much thought, all I could come up with was: "They became Americans."

When I was growing up in the 1950s, the change for the better had been in place for some time here in New York, where we had had a son of Irish immigrants, Alfred E. Smith, as our governor. Many police commissioners, district attorneys, and politicians were of Irish descent. The archbishop of New York City was Francis Cardinal Spellman, also a son of Irish immigrants.

All the nuns who taught the girls in my elementary school on East 111th Street belonged to a religious organization founded in Dublin in 1831, the Sisters of Mercy. The Irish Christian Brothers taught the boys in another part of the school building. In fact, the school itself was named after a World War II hero, Commander John J. Shea.

The priests in the main parish of St. Cecilia's on East 106th Street bore names I barely recall that were reminiscent of Eire, e.g., Scanlon, O'Hara, and Murphy. It was not an exaggeration that my neighbors in the barrio felt that Irish men were either priests or cops. The history of Irish immigration popped up again during John F. Kennedy's candidacy in 1960 in stories that heralded the evolution of his ancestry to the height of political prominence.

The Sisters of Mercy brought their mission to educate the poor in New York City in 1846. The majority of the children in my school were Puerto Rican and the nuns did all they could to teach us that the way to succeed despite our circumstances was to work hard, get a good education, and learn good and proper English. There was no such thing as bilingual or English as a Second Language classes. As Puerto Ricans and native-born Americans, we were gifted with the citizenship that other immigrants have to struggle for. We were taught the history of our great nation, and we knew how very fortunate we were to have been born here in the greatest country in the world.

This is not to say that we were encouraged to ignore our cultural roots, but there was a time and place for it and that did not include the classroom, where education was the priority. During assemblies and holidays, we sang the songs of a tropical isle and danced to the rhythms of a distant past. In fact, I recall appearing on a Sunday morning television program called "Lamp Unto My Feet" singing a Puerto Rican Christmas song, "Pastores a Belém," with my classmates.

This, of course, was before the advent of multiculturalism and the dilution of our public educational system. Italians, Germans, and other immigrant groups had gone through the same progression that the nuns taught us then in parochial school. So why is it that this country is so marginalized by groups demanding privileges and exemptions for their cultural ethnicity? Have the lives of blacks been improved by hyphenated nomenclature describing a distant heritage? Why isn't the nationality of American enough?

Because of this fractionalization, we have elected a president who finds it difficult to defend our nation and a first lady who was never proud of her country until it voted for her husband. Over a million people gathered in Washington, D.C., last month who recognized that the country they love is being dismantled by those who have been taught not to have any respect for it.

I've decided to quit answering the question, "What nationality are you?" with anything other than, "I'm an American." New Yorkers are notorious for inquiring about one's heritage, which isn't readily identifiable by the color of one's skin. When I was in a Chinese restaurant in London and an Asian waiter took my order with a Cockney accent, I knew he was a British subject. Where is our pride in being American? Why do we care so much about the opinion of the international community whose citizens are still dying to come here? Once upon a time we also could be identified by our common language. Now that is no longer the case. People are hanging onto their cultural heritage while enjoying the benefits of American freedom and that may be detrimental not only to society but to their own achievements.

That is what I meant when I told my daughter that the Irish conquered discrimination by becoming Americans and adapting our own culture. One of the reasons there were so many riots in France last year by poor and angry Islamist immigrant youths was that they refused to assimilate into the country they lived in and found themselves unemployable, with poor language skills. European socialism contributes to that lack of drive because it removes incentives to achieve.

The poorest cities in our nation are those ruled by liberal Democrats who foolishly believe that handing out checks and benefits without earning them will placate the masses. Charity that takes away the willingness to work is evil and it also reveals a condescending attitude by politicians toward the poor.

Americans need to stop using race and discrimination as crutches and excuses for failure and start emulating the Irish for embracing this wonderful country as the land of opportunity it has always been.

Alicia Colon resides in New York and is a columnist for nysun.com. Her Web site is aliciacolon.com.