I took a graduate history course that was taught by this author. We discussed a lot of the things that he brings up in this book in his class, though obviously not in quite as much detail because it was about immigration and ethnicity in American life in general. I believe he finished this book just as the class was ending or shortly after. I forget which. But regardless, I was interested so I added it to my “to read” list. I finally got to sit down with it this month.

I didn’t see too much in the book that surprised me, since we’d talked about a lot of it before. Hirota’s argument that modern US immigration regulations stemmed from state immigration regulation systems, and primarily from those of Massachusetts and New York, which in turn were built on the previous town-level “warning out” system, is well made. I wasn’t really left with any doubt about that progression by the end of the book. It was also interesting that state officials basically just switched hats and became the federal officials over immigration.

My biggest issue with the book is style. There is a lot of repetition and overlap. The chapters read as though they were intended to be 7 stand-alone essays that were bound together into one book. The same ground is covered multiple times. Some of this is probably my lingering impressions from reading the introduction, then chapter introductions, chapter conclusions, and then the conclusion. That’s pretty standard in academic history books, but it makes for hard reading if you’re going cover to cover.

What came first? Anti-Irish racism or economic concerns? In the conclusion, Hirota says that racism was the primary driving factor in creating anti-Irish pauper immigration, but throughout the book, the documents and people he quoted and the narrative he wrote gave me the impression that, while people didn’t overly care for the Irish, it wasn’t until they saw their cities and states being overrun by assisted pauper immigration and destitute, insane, criminal, starving Irish fleeing the famine that the rhetoric and restrictions kicked up a notch.

Anyway, it’s definitely worth taking a look at if you’re interested in American immigration history or Irish immigration to the US. I also found it interesting in terms of how it explored the shifting balance of power between local, state, and the federal governments.

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Almost everything bad in our immigration policy had an initial life in New York and Massachusetts state policy towards Irish immigrants, before the feds took over responsibility (and took cues from those states on how to exclude and deport poor immigrants). Highlights: Deporting women and their native-born American kids, as well as elderly people who’d lived forty years in the US and had no contacts in Ireland. Ignoring rights, including sometimes naturalized citizenship. Dumping deportees with no resources in places they could well die. Condemning people as natural paupers because of their appearance when they tried to enter the US, often suffering from tragedy at home and a terrible journey regardless of their capacities when encouraged to thrive. No farce here, only tragedy. ( )