Irish Immigrants To America Quotes

We need to quit subsidizing the costs for illegal immigrants' residency in America immediately. How long will we allow them to siphon millions upon millions from honest taxpaying Americans by supporting their health care, welfare, education and criminal expenses? ~ Newt Gingrich

I tried to think of a singularly American superstition. I'd learned a few from the Uncles - something about not letting one's shoes touch the kitchen table - but those were all imported from the Old World. Perhaps a country of immigrants had never gotten around to commingling the less desirable pieces of their cultures. Either that, or life there wasn't difficult enough to warrant an adult's belief in magic. ~ Sara Novic

The disconcertingly fecal image of Moroccans as "undifferentiated brown stuff" has a counterpart in imagery used more recently in discussions of illegal immigration from Latin America to the United States, a country alleged to be "awash under a brown tide" of Mexican immigrants (as almost a century earlier, the American anti-immigrationist Lothrop Stoddard had warned that white America was soon to be swamped by a "rising tide of color"). The significance of the expression "brown tide" may not be obvious to all readers. The term refers to an algae infestation specific to the Gulf of Mexico that turns seawater brown. ~ David Livingstone Smith

On coming to America I had the same hopes as have most European immigrants and the same disillusionment, though the latter affected me more keenly and more deeply. The immigrant without money and without connections is not permitted to cherish the comforting illusion that America is a benevolent uncle who assumes a tender and impartial guardianship of nephews and nieces. I soon learned that in a republic there are myriad ways by which the strong, the cunning, the rich can seize power and hold it. I saw the many work for small wages which kept them always on the borderline of want for the few who made huge profits. I saw the courts, the halls of legislation, the press, and the schools--in fact every avenue of education and protection--effectively used as an instrument for the safeguarding of a minority, while the masses were denied every right. I found that the politicians knew how to befog every issue, how to control public opinion and manipulate votes to their own advantage and to that of their financial and industrial allies. This was the picture of democracy I soon discovered on my arrival in the United States. Fundamentally there have been few changes since that time. ~ Emma Goldman

[I] would argue that native-born blacks are so vastly less "African" than actual Africans that calling ourselves 'African American' is not only illogical but almost disrespectful to African immigrants. Here are people who were born in Africa, speak African languages, eat African food, dance in African ways, remember African stories, and will spiritually always be a part of Africa -and we stand up and insist that we, too, are 'African' because Jesse Jackson said so? ~ John McWhorter

It almost seems that nobody can hate America as much as native Americans. America needs new immigrants to love and cherish it. ~ Eric Hoffer

we're a pessimistic bunch. What is more surprising is that, as surveys have found, working-class whites are the most pessimistic group in America. More pessimistic than Latino immigrants, many of whom suffer unthinkable poverty. More pessimistic than black Americans, whose material prospects continue to lag behind those of whites. While reality permits some degree of cynicism, the fact that hillbillies like me are more down about the future than many other groups - some ~ J.D. Vance

The bottom line is if the president [Barack Obama] really wants to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, maybe his Justice Department should stop releasing felons, many of which are illegal immigrants, only to the streets of America. ~ Katie Pavlich

The most important obstacle to speed and ease of assimilation, however, is race. In the nineteenth century, swarthy Jews, "black" Irish, and Italian "guineas" - a not so subtle euphemism borrowed from the African country of Guinea - were all seen as what we today call "people of color." These immigrants terrified lighter-skinned native-born Americans, who accepted the newcomers as "white" only when they - actually, their descendants - began to earn middle-class incomes. Of course, skin color does not affect an immigrant's ability to absorb American culture. But color can play a large part in hindering economic and social assimilation: today's black newcomers, from the Caribbean and elsewhere, are often treated as part of the African-American population, with all the associated disadvantages. ~ Tamar Jacoby

America was first colonized by Puritans. Most of our earliest immigrants, and many since, have come here in order to practice their religious beliefs as they please. Our culture has always been, and will most likely always be, profoundly influenced by religion. ~ James Frey

I've had to wonder if people like Shina and other spawns of third world immigrants have felt the need to purchase so much expensive couture in order to feel acceptable and insulated enough in (white) American upper-class society. But why purchase so much costly shit when you're not even that rich or ever going to wear half of what your husband has had to pay for anyway? At least more upper-class white women in America have had better things to spend their money on, like Botox, fillers, and online dating sites. ~ Jean Bergman

The Irish recruits who poured into the army in 1846 were already accustomed to the realities of antebellum American nativism. The country had been rocked by anti-Catholic riots even before the famine produced new waves of Irish immigrants; in Boston, Protestant mobs had burned a convent in 1834, and Philadelphia had seen mob attacks on Irishmen ten years later. So the recent immigrants who enlisted for war with Mexico weren't surprised to encounter nativists in the army. They were very much surprised, though, by the intensity of the anti-Irish sentiment they faced from their officers - a social sentiment that was expressed through official discipline. ~ Chris Bray

America has been very open to immigrants in terms of laws, getting loans - it has been helping immigrants more than it's been helping African Americans in starting a small business. That's key, whether you're starting a restaurant or a laundromat. ~ Marcus Samuelsson

The more we recruit from immigrants who bring no personal traditions with them, the more America is going to ignore the things of the spirit. No one whose consuming desire is either for food or for motor-cars is going to care about culture, or even know what it is. ~ Katharine Fullerton Gerould

As you know, I'm an immigrant. I came over here as an immigrant, and what gave me the opportunities, what made me to be here today, is the open arms of Americans. I have been received. I have been adopted by America. ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

As the number of available jobs has decreased in border states like Texas, cities halfway across America have begun to see an influx of illegal immigrants in search of employment. ~ Spencer Bachus

As an immigrant, I chose to live in America because it is one of the freest and most vibrant nations in the world. And as an immigrant, I feel an obligation to speak up for immigration policies that will keep America the most economically robust, creative and freedom-loving nation in the world. ~ Rupert Murdoch

Doing difficult things like passing marriage equality, passing the Dream Act, doing common sense things that allow new American immigrants to fully participate, pay their taxes, play by the rules and take care of their families. That's the inclusive America that I believe all of us want to move to. ~ Martin O'Malley

America isn't Congress. America isn't Washington. America is the striving immigrant who starts a business, or the mom who works two low-wage jobs to give her kid a better life. America is the union leader and the CEO who put aside their differences to make the economy stronger. ~ Barack Obama

Now that the book is out in the world, I'm amazed all over again at what my friend did for me in prompting me to ditch realism for a more magical approach. In some ways, the Golem and the Jinni are the ultimate immigrants. They aren't just new to New York or America; they're new to people. Like those around them, they wrestle with issues of religion versus doubt and duty versus self-determination - but as inescapable aspects of their own otherworldly natures. For seven years I've lived with their questions, arguments, and adventures, and it's been one of the greatest gifts of my life. ~ Helene Wecker

And you have to remember that I came to America as an immigrant. You know, on a ship, through the Statue of Liberty. And I saw that skyline, not just as a representation of steel and concrete and glass, but as really the substance of the American Dream. ~ Daniel Libeskind

And I thought, y'know, I mean…this is crazy. I mean, the only thing that determines what country you belong to is where you happened to be born? What is a country, anyway? It's not, y'know, "purple mountain's majesty" or "fruited plains," whatever the hell that means. I mean, America isn't a place, it's an ideal. It could happen in the Sahara Desert and still be America. For that matter, I'm the child of immigrants. My father's lived and worked in this country for the past three decades. And he's somehow more or less American than some redneck who uses Osama bin Laden for toilet paper? How the hell do you measure something like that? ~ Phillip Andrew Bennett Low

Immigrants have always come into the country with low levels of education. Whether it's the Irish or Italian or Polish, here is the land of opportunity. It's where people come in at the bottom and build themselves up. To try to bring in people who have already made it is un-American. ~ Lionel Sosa

I love Europe, but we are still struggling with that kind of development. First of all, we don't have a smart conversation about the difference between an immigrant and a refugee. A refugee can't go back. An immigrant is someone - I chose to move to America. And I also have the option of saying hey, didn't work out, I can move back. That's a completely different story than someone who is locked in. ~ Marcus Samuelsson

We are indeed a nation of immigrants. People who choose to come to America have always been one of our greatest sources of national vitality. They keep our economy strong and our communities dynamic. They are some of our greatest patriots. ~ Thomas Perez

Anyone who starts badmouthing Latino immigrants is not only a racist but ignorant. You need to refer them to what was written about the Irish, the Jews, the Italians, any group you want. ~ James Gray

I'm an immigrant kid who came to America from India when I was very young and grew up in New York City with a single mom and really was influenced by all of those immigrant cultures bumping up against each other. ~ Padma Lakshmi

Let's start that conversation by acknowledging we aren't going to deport 12 million illegal immigrants. If you wish to work, if you wish to live and work in America, then we will find a place for you. ~ Rand Paul

Immigrants bring to America the values of faith in God, love of family, hard work and self reliance - the values that made us a great nation to begin with. We've all seen those values in action, through the service and sacrifice of more than 35,000 foreign-born men and women currently on active duty in the United States military. ~ George W. Bush

Immigrants to America help us with the work they do. They challenge us with new ideas, and they give us perspective. This is still the nation that more people around the world want to come to than any place else. That has to tell us something about ourselves. If around the world this is the place people want to come to so much, maybe there's more here than many of us realize-and that many of us can take advantage of. ~ Rudy Giuliani

The ability of Britain to invade almost the entire planet and then for a significant portion of the country
to proclaim themselves victims of some kind of invasion or colonisation may
well not seem directly 'racial', but it certainly echoes quite clearly the way white
America, with its long-term history of racist pogroms, lynching, slavery and
segregation, has somehow emerged believing itself to be the victim of racial
discrimination. Britain entered the EU freely, it has voted leave freely, the only
blood that was shed around this issue was when a white-supremacist ultra¬
nationalist lunatic assassinated an MP perceived to be too kind to 'immigrants'
during the campaign - hardly a country under siege like so many of those on the
receiving end of Britain's imperial conquests. ~ Akala

Even American women are not felt to be persons in the same sense as the male immigrants among the Hungarians, Poles, Russian Jews,
not to speak of Italians, Germans, and the masters of all of us
the Irish! ~ Mary Corinna Putnam Jacobi

What is important about immigration is how immigrants arrived and what the individual immigrants do with their lives after arriving. Do they open a restaurant or other business, do they provide for their family, do they integrate into the larger community - in essence, do they become proud Americans? Or do they try their hardest to stay "economic migrants" or "hyphenated-Americans"? Or, at worst, do they attempt to convert America into the countries from which they escaped? ~ Mike Klepper

You know those short, brown-toned South American immigrants that pick your fruit, slaughter your meat, and bus your tables? Would you - a respectable person with a middle-class upbringing - ever consider going on a date with one of them? It's a rude question, because it affects to inquire into what everyone gets to know at the cost of forever leaving it unspoken. But if you were to put your unspoken thoughts into words, they might sound something like this: Not only are these people busing the tables, slaughtering the meat, and picking the fruit; they are the descendants of the people who bused the tables, slaughtered the meat, and picked the fruit of the Aztecs and Incas. The Spanish colonisers slaughtered or mixed their blood with the princes, priests, scholars, artisans, warriors, and beautiful women of the indigenous Americas, leaving untouched a class of Morlocks bred for good-natured servility and thus now tailor-made to the demands of an increasingly feudal postindustrial America. That's, by the way, part of the undertow of the immigration debate, the thing that makes an honest appraisal of the issue impossible, because you can never put anything right without first admitting you're in the wrong. ~ Wesley Yang

I always heard that immigrants had a really hard life when they came to America. ~ Sofia Vergara

America is this incredible mosaic of immigrants, so people really want to be anchored in some kind of culture as well as the one they are living in. ~ Dylan Moran

The popular story is that America was built by immigrants and that, therefore, everything about immigration is good and leads to a more successful society. This narrative is so devoid of historical context that it should embarrass anyone beyond a second-grade education. ~ James Howard Kunstler

I like it too," Angelo said. "I love this country. Much you and anybody, and you know it."

"I know it," Prew said.

"But I still hate this country. You love the Army. But I dont love the Army. This country's Army is why I hate this country. What did this country ever do for me? Gimme a right to vote for men I cant elect? You can have it. Gimme a right to work at a job I hate? You can have that too. Then tell I'm a Citizen of the greatest richest country on earth, if I dont believe it look at Park Avenue. Carnival prizes. All carnival prizes. [..] They shouldnt teach their immigrants' kids all about democracy unless they mean to let them have a little bit of it, it ony makes for trouble. Me and the United States is dissociating our alliance as of right now, until the United States can find time to read its own textbooks a little."

Prew thought, a little sickly, of the little book, The Man Without A Country that his mother used to read to him so often, and how the stern patriotic judge condemned the man to live on a warship where no one could ever mention home to him the rest of his whole life, and how he had always felt that pinpoint of pleased righteous anger at seeing the traitor get what he deserved. ~ James Jones

I reached out and touched him on the arm and said uncertainly, "They want us to come back."

Without turning, he shook his head and cried shakenly, "I can't go back. It ain't my country any more. I've lived too much in America ever to go back." And then, angrily, "Don't you know that?"

...Then I saw a cragged face that that land had filled with hope and torn with pain, had changed from young to old, and in the end had claimed. And then, I did know it. ~ Robert Laxalt

I'm learning. The mick from the lanes of Limerick letting the envy hang out. I'm dealing with first-and second-generation immigrants, like myself, but I've also got the middle classes and the upper middle classes and I'm sneering. I don't want to sneer but old habits die hard. It's the resentment. Not even anger. Just resentment. I shake my head over the things that concern them, that middle-class stuff, it's too hot, it's too cold and this is not the toothpaste I like. Here am I after three decades in America still happy to be able to turn on the electric light or reach for a towel after the shower. ~ Frank McCourt

Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity, until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country. ~ Barack Obama

It seems to me that America is constantly reinventing what "America" means. ~ Ronald Reagan

Will gritted his teeth as Will Junior and Nellie continued their debate. He loved his son, but he found him
and many members of hisgeneration
ruthless in their pursuit of money and standing and harsh toward the less fortunate. He had reminded him on many occasions that both the McClanes and their mother's family
the Van der leydens
had at one time been immigrants. As had members of all the city's wealthy families. But Will's lectures made no difference to his son. He was an American. And those getting off the boat at Castle Garden were not. Italian, Irish, Chinese, Polish
nationality made no difference. They were lazy, stupid, and dirty. Their numbers spelled ruin for the country. p. 264 ~ Jennifer Donnelly

Mexico is sex and Canada is mind. There is much about Canada that I find admirable - the treatment of immigrants, for example, particularly those from Central America during the recent civil wars there. But there is confusion too: I know of Croatian Nazis who are subsidized by the Canadian government to maintain their racist culture. There is Canada, trying to sustain diversity without knowing exactly what it's doing. ~ Richard Rodriguez