What challenges did Irish immigrants face in America?

What challenges did Irish immigrants face in America?

Disease of all kinds (including cholera, typhus, tuberculosis, and mental illness) resulted from these miserable living conditions. Irish immigrants sometimes faced hostility from other groups in the U.S., and were accused of spreading disease and blamed for the unsanitary conditions many lived in.

What impact did the Irish have on America?

The Irish immigrants who entered the United States from the sixteenth to twentieth centuries were changed by America, and also changed this nation. They and their descendants made incalculable contributions in politics, industry, organized labor, religion, literature, music, and art.

What are conditions like in America for Irish immigrants?

The Irish often had no money when they came to America. So, they settled in the first cities in which they arrived. They crowded into homes, living in tiny, cramped spaces. A lack of sewage and running water made diseases spread.

Why did Irish immigrants remain in the United States even after facing attitudes?

Why did Irish immigrants remain in the US even after facing attitudes such as those in the excerpt? They believed they had greater opportunities in America. They provided essential services to immigrants, such as finding housing.

Why did Irish immigrants change their names?

Desire to Fit In. Many immigrants changed their names in some way to assimilate into their new country and culture. A common choice was to translate the meaning of their surname into the new language. Example: The Irish surname BREHONY became JUDGE.

What did the Irish face in the workplace?

The Irish often suffered blatant or subtle job discrimination. Furthermore, some businesses took advantage of Irish immigrants’ willingness to work at unskilled jobs for low pay. Employers were known to replace (or threaten to replace) uncooperative workers and those demanding higher wages with Irish American laborers.

Where did the Irish settle in America?

The immigrants who reached America settled in Boston, New York, and other cities where they lived in difficult conditions. But most managed to survive, and their descendants have become a vibrant part of American culture. Even before the famine, Ireland was a country of extreme poverty.

Why did Irish immigrants drop the O?

In the 1600s, when English rule intensified, the prefixes O and Mac were widely dropped because it became extremely difficult to find work if you had an Irish sounding name. Occasionally, the wrong prefix was adopted, particularly adding an O when the original prefix was Mac.

How did the Irish immigrants get treated in America?

The Irish were treated poorly as compared to Americans’ treatment of German immigrants. Irish people often were caricatured in newspapers as illiterate drunks. Boston’s English Americans looked upon Irish people as a servant race.

What kind of discrimination did the Irish Americans face?

History of Discrimination. Notice that the president used the word “discrimination” to discuss the Irish American experience. In the 21st century, Irish Americans are widely considered to be “white” and reap the benefits of white skin privilege.

How many people of Irish descent are in the US?

Census figures show an Irish population of 8.2 million in 1841, 6.6 million a decade later, and only 4.7 million in 1891. It is estimated that as many as 4.5 million Irish arrived in America between 1820 and 1930. Between 1820 and 1860, the Irish constituted over one third of all immigrants to the United States.

What was the biggest challenge faced by immigrants?

For these immigrants, the biggest challenge was their lack of marketable skills. Women often were employed doing piece-work from home and sometimes went days without seeing sunlight. Those women who worked outside the home faced the hazards of working long hours in sweatshops. Men took the work of unskilled laborers on municipal projects.