Noel Ignatiev

Noel Ignatiev, "How the Irish Became White"

Noel Ignatiev (1940- ) was born in Philadelphia and earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University. Ignatiev worked in steel mills and various factories for more than twenty years before going to Harvard, and currently teaches history in the department of Critical Studies at the Massachusetts College of Art. He was also a fellow at the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for Afro-American Research at Harvard in 1997-1998. One of Ignatiev's frequent writing topics is the social construction of whiteness, and his books include How the Irish Became White (1995) and Race Traitor (1996), winner of an American Book Award. Ignatiev co-edited the latter book, an anthology culled from the journal also called Race Traitor, with John Garvey. Ignatiev also contributes to periodicals such as Social Education, Transition, and the Journal of Social History. "How the Irish Became White," which studies Irish immigration and acculturation patterns, is an excerpt from the book of the same name.

CONTENT

1. At what point in time does this essay begin?
2. By what names were Catholics known in 18^th century Ireland?
3. How is the word mulatto used in this essay?
4. How did the Irish- and African-Americans initially interact? How did this change over time?
5. What is nativism? How did this movement affect early Irish settlers in America?
6. In demographic terms, what happened to Irish people upon their arrival in America?
7. What were the Penal laws? What effects did they have on Catholics?

STRATEGY AND STYLE

1. Discuss this piece as a process analysis essay. Make sure you make clear what process is being analyzed and how the author defends his main points.
2. What seems paradoxical about the title at first glance? Now that you've done your reading, discuss its effectiveness or ineffectiveness as a title.
3. In paragraph three Ignatiev provides a long quote from a 19^th century newspaper article. What are some of the advantages of providing this lengthy quote in one place as opposed to cutting up the writing and discussing it bit by bit?
4. Also in paragraph three, the author provides numbers such as 406,000 and 15,000. What does he gain using this approach rather than using forms such as, for example, "hundreds of thousands" or just "thousands"?

1. Describe your impression of the interaction between blacks and whites at your school. Does it differ as the place differs: from a particular classroom to the recreation center to a fraternity house (or whatever your relevant places are)? How might you link your impressions to this essay?
2. With which ethnic or cultural group do you most closely identify? How did this identification affect your reading? Explain.

SUGGESTIONS FOR SUSTAINED WRITING

1. In paragraph nine, the author states that the Irish "came to boast their white skin as their highest prerogative." What does this statement mean? What else could they have done?
2. If, as Ignatiev argues, being white is a social concept, what does this do to common notions of race? Following this reasoning, can whites re-conceptualize themselves by social agreement? What about non-whites? What do these things depend upon?

FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

Do some research to study Irish immigration patterns further in one particular U.S. city before the Civil War. How can you relate what you learned during your research to your reading?

WEB CONNECTION

Take a look at these reviews of Ignatiev's book How the Irish Became White. Some of them are blurbs. What methods would you use to find the whole review in these cases? What information on this page would you feel comfortable using for a paper about this author? What information would you avoid using? Why? What's a major difference between the two types of reviews found here?

LINKS

Biographical

This page has a brief biography of Ignatiev, a photo, some links, and an excerpt from How the Irish Became White.

This article from the Barnard Campus News contains a good deal of biographical information about the author. How does the information here differ from that found on the page above? What, do you think, accounts for the difference?

Bibliographical

In this January 1997 interview with Z magazine, Ignatiev discusses both the anthology and the journal Race Traitor.

For more information about the journal, take a look at the homepage of Racetraitor.org. There, you'll find a mission statement and links to things like some multimedia, a comment area, a sitemap, and contact information.

Cultural

Did you know that the author participated in a PBS documentary called Africans in America? You can read more about it by clicking here.

Are you interested in the huge topic of immigration to the U.S., but not sure how to narrow it for a paper? Take a look at this directory about U.S. immigration from Google.com, and you'll generate plenty of good ideas about where to start.

Would you like to see some more resources revolving around the social construction of the white race? Click here and you'll find a bibliography on the subject and a link to the DiversityWeb bulletin board.