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Article: Editor's introduction.
- Article from:
- Eire-Ireland: a Journal of Irish Studies
- Article date:
- March 22, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Irish American Cultural Institute. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In the course of the twentieth century, the American Irish overcame most of the discrimination and impoverishment that had characterized their history in the nineteenth century. With the arrival in the United States of the "new immigrants" from southern and eastern Europe from the 1880s onward, the Irish moved from largely unskilled work to primarily skilled and managerial positions. At the same time, the racial typologies of anti-immigrant nativists somewhat begrudgingly included the Irish in the superior "Nordic" or "Teutonic" category, while confining the "new immigrants" to racial inferiority. The Catholicism of Irish Americans excluded them from full respectability ...