The Luck of the Irish

The United States of America is known as a “melting pot” a place where people from every culture can blend and become one uniform group. This idea of assimilation is not a positive subject for all immigrants. For the Irish, their immigration into the United States is distinct from other groups mostly because assimilation was not their main concern. First off, their migration started long before the famine, and unlike other cultures, men and women migrated in equal numbers and few left the US once they arrived (Guinnane). Because so many individuals stayed, the Irish traditions also found their way into American life.

Their strong ties to Ireland made the cultural transition easier for Irish immigrants. Religion was a main ingredient in the Irish culture that was maintained and incorporated into the American way of life. The Irish Americans brought Catholic churches and schools with them to the United State (Guinnane). Around 50 percent of the United States Catholic population was Irish By 1900 (Guinnane).

Not only the religious aspects of the Irish were preserved. Even after the Irish had become integrated into the main aspects of American urban life and somewhat assimilated, the Irish continued to create their own neighborhoods as well. Most social interactions continued in Irish neighborhoods (Guinnane). Another reason that the Irish culture found a home within America was that the immigrants still married within their ethnicity. Among those Irishwomen who married in America, 70% married Irish-born men or the sons of Irish-born immigrants (Guinnane).

America is now looked at as a “salad” with a heterogeneous build instead of a fully assimilated melting pot. Some immigrants may have lost many aspects of their culture in the move to America. Clearly the Irish traditions and ideas immigrated to the United States with them and therefore maintained the key aspects of their way of life.

Works Cited

Guinnane, Timothy W., Carolyn M. Moehling, and Cormac Ó Gráda "The fertility of the Irish in the United States in 1910." Explorations in Economic History 43.3 (2006): 465-485. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 5 Nov. 2009.