Noel Ignatiev | |
Noel IgnatievNoel 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. | QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION | CONTENT - At what point in time does this essay begin?
- By what names were Catholics known in 18th century Ireland?
- How is the word mulatto used in this essay?
- How did the Irish- and African-Americans initially interact? How
did this change over time?
- What is nativism? How did this movement affect early Irish settlers
in America?
- In demographic terms, what happened to Irish people upon their arrival
in America?
- What were the Penal laws? What effects did they have on Catholics?
STRATEGY AND STYLE - 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.
- What seems paradoxical about the title at first glance? Now that
you've done your reading, discuss its effectiveness or ineffectiveness
as a title.
- In paragraph three Ignatiev provides a long quote from a 19th
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?
- 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"?
| ENGAGING THE TEXT | - 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?
- With which ethnic or cultural group do you most closely identify?
How did this identification affect your reading? Explain.
| SUGGESTIONS FOR SUSTAINED WRITING | - 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?
- 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.
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