To all you people of Irish descent

[RagingInMiami]

Have you ever heard of the San Patricios Brigade?

These were the Irish immigrants who had arrived in the United States during the 1840s and were drafted to fight in the Mexican-American War, only to desert the American army and join the Mexicans in their fight to retain their land.

As you probably know, the Irish were not welcomed warmly into the United States. They were considered inferior. They were compared to apes. They couldn’t even find work because of signs that said, “No Irish need apply.”

And they were accused of trying to turn the United States into a Catholic nation, loyal only to the Pope.

So when they were drafted into the army to fight against the Mexicans, they quickly realized they were fighting an enemy much like themselves. They shared the same religion and the same oppression.

After all, the Irish had been oppressed for hundreds of years by the English before coming to the United States and getting treated the same way. The last thing they wanted was to become oppressors.

So they deserted the American army and joined the Mexican army, where they became the Saint Patrick’s Brigade.

To the Mexicans, who revere the Irish to this day, and even dedicated a national holiday to the soldiers, they were known as the San Patricios.

Made up of about 800 deserters, the San Patricios also included Catholic immigrants from other European countries. But the bulk of the brigade was Irish as was their leader, Captain John Riley from Galway.

The Mexicans lost the war, of course. And the San Patricios were captured. Those that deserted before the actual declaration of war against Mexico were branded with a “D” on their forehead and sentenced to the stockade. Those that deserted after the declaration of the war were executed.

Meanwhile, the Irish immigrant was eventually able to overcome the oppression in the United States. And they gave us one of the greatest presidents in the history of our country. A man so great they had to kill him.

And if JFK were president today, I wonder how he would address the immigration situation.

http://www.vivasancarlos.com/patrick.html

http://www.irishargentine.org/sanpatriciosB.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Patrick%27s_Battalion

EDIT: To fix bad link.

[blondeatlast]

1. Where is the "standing ovation" smiley? I need it NOW. K&R.

Thank you for an excellent post.

[RagingInMiami]

8. I knew you would like that story

[mitchtv]

2. I saw the movie

I also met a guy from the village where they were welcomed in Mexico some years back. I thanked him

[RagingInMiami]

4. Unfortunately, the movie was pretty boring, I thought

Such a compelling subject, but it failed to come across on the screen.

[maveric]

36. With Tom Berenger?

It was a bit slow but overall a pretty good flick.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. So you owe me a beer!

LOL Just kidding.

Neat story.

JFK - hmm I do wonder what he would do. Since he was a far better diplomat than el pretzeldente, I doubt the situation would be this bad.

[countryjake]

5. Your Wikipedia link is wrong...

Maybe it's a typo, but here is the correct link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Patrick%27s_Battalion

[RagingInMiami]

6. Thanks

I fixed it.

[Mend]

7. what do you think of Ave Maria village going up on this coast?

built by an Irish-American I believe.

[RagingInMiami]

11. The Dominos Pizza guy?

I think that's insane. I respect all religions, but I think people go way overboard on it.

[Lefty48197]

12. I think that's Domino's Pizza's Tom Monaghan who is building the village

He's kind of a nut.

[RagingInMiami]

15. I love the Irish

But they should leave the pizza-making to Italians.

[mzmolly]

17. Obviously you've never had corned beef and cabbage pizza??

:P

[RagingInMiami]

19. A true story here

After college, I spent two years in Europe, including 18 months in Dublin. I worked as a waiter in this pizzeria, where they sold some of the best pizza in Dublin. But they also sold cole slaw as a side order, which I found strange at first.

What I found stranger is how the Irish would order a pizza, along with a side of cole slaw, then pile the cole slaw on top of their pizza before eating it.

I could never understand that. Ruin a perfectly good pizza with cole slaw.

[countryjake]

29. Wow, gotta have that cabbage!

[_testify_]

33. Actually...

I grew up in NYC and my mother's family is off-the-boat Italian, so I'd like to present those as my pizza credentials.

The best pizza places in NYC are run by Greeks or Puerto Ricans!

IMHO, of course.


The best pizza in Tampa is made by Italians, though.

[RagingInMiami]

39. I'll keep that in mind next time I go to NY

Whatever you do, if you come down to Miami, don't ever try "Cuban Pizza" because it is horrible.

[_testify_]

44. Really? I'm surprised...Cuban food is usually awesome!

I don't know how I made it through my first 26 years without a garlic-pressed Cuban sandwich.

[RagingInMiami]

46. Cuban food is awesome

But they should just stick to Cuban food.

[Inland]

56. Domino's is Exhibit A.

To put in bluntly, not the best. It's never taken hold in the Chicago area.

[mzmolly]

14. What's your point?

And, what does that have to do with the OP?

[Bridget Burke]

38. This post has nothing at all to do with the thread...

Except to let us know something about you.

[knitter4democracy]

47. That place is scary.

I know a guy who's at the seminary there, and they've pretty much ruined him. He used to be such a wonderful guy, and now he's rabidly right wing and pretty nasty about it. *sigh* I just hope that, when he gets out in the real world again, he'll get back on the path he strayed from.

[Lefty48197]

9. Great post.

I hadn't heard of the San Patricios. I think Kennedy would fall into the "Give me your tired, your weary, your huddles masses, yearning to be free..." club.

[Smarmie Doofus]

10. It's 'hidden from history' like a lot of things....

... like the 200,000 or so Filipinos who perished so some Americans could act out their disturbed dreams of empire.

[newspeak]

34. well, there is another side of the Filipino story (Spanish-American War)

It seems that the government enlisted the black Buffalo soldiers who many had fought the Indians to fight in the Phillipines--many of the black Buffalo soldiers saw such genocidal actrocities committed by the US soldiers that they defected to the Filipino side.

[mitchtv]

52. During the Spanish American War

the two adversaries turned their guns on filipinos allied to US to prevent capture of Manila a new low in treachery

[mzmolly]

13. I'm Irish - and lots of it.

But I was unfamiliar with this story and really need to dig into MY history a bit.

Thanks for the post.

K&R. :hi:

[Southsideirish]

20. Me, too and I, also, never heard of it. Fascinating story. Thanks (!)

[mzmolly]

16. There are a few films about this event:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1574887386/ref=pd_bxgy_img_b/103-9522627-9755867?%5Fencoding=UTF8

The one above has great ratings, off to check netflix. :hi:

[RB TexLa]

18. Great Post

There is alot more to justice than borders.

[northofdenali]

21. Beautiful.

:thumbsup:

[Swamp Rat]

22. Who killed JFK?

Probably Bluebloods from New England.

[RagingInMiami]

23. The same people in office today

Believe it or not.

[Swamp Rat]

24. I don't just believe it,

I know it.

[intheflow]

25. Good one, Raging.

It makes my blood boil to see white people up in arms about border control. The only people with bitching rights about immigration are Native Americans--which, I might add, include Mexicans.

K&R :kick:

[JeffR]

26. Great post, Raging

Great.

:toast:

[Hekate]

27. I honestly don't know what JFK would've done, but we KNOW where RFK stood

I think Jack Kennedy strove to do the right thing, but it's hard to know how he would have handled the mess we are in today. He had a way about him, though...

With Bobby Kennedy, however, the record seems pretty clear, since he aligned himself with Cesar Chavez and the migrant farmworkers.

Oh gods...

Good post on the San Patricios, but of course the history of the Irish on this continent is even more complicated than that.

I was startled to learn that in the South, Irish immigrants and African-American freedmen duked it out for the same bottom-strata jobs, leading to enduring resentment on both sides.

And my Colorado-born mother vividly remembers that in the heyday of the KKK, Catholics were on the hate-list for being Papists.

The US was pretty much founded by Protestants, and Roman Catholics were presumed to have allegiance to a foreign potentate, i.e. the Pope of Rome. This was a fairly widespread prejudice not confined to the KKK.

When bids went out to dig the Erie Canal, Southern slaveholders were approached about leasing their slaves -- but everyone knew the job was going to be a mankiller, and slaves were valuable property. >Ahem< So they hired the Irish.

IIRC, the Irish and Chinese between them pretty much built the transcontinental railroad. "Trying to make a dollar out of sixteen cents."

But we're so damn numerous now. Who knew?

The "immigrant myth" was part of my upbringing. I've known forever that successive waves of immigrants from Europe changed the composition of the US again and again. People nowadays just so used to the big influxes being white, most of them forget how hard it was to assimilate for Poles, Irish, Jews...

I've known since the 1990 census that the future of California is brown. I put it into the context of the immigrant myth I grew up with -- but I wonder how it will feel to have all that change in my own neighborhood?

Hekate

[newspeak]

35. the underlying problem, even during the corrupt robber baron times

was the elite pitting groups against each other. The first to be hired were the Yankees, or those families who have been in US since it's government was formed (women and men worked in the cotton mills). They were provided adequate wage and most boarding. When immigration increased, Germans replaced those workers since they would work for less. The Irish worked in manufacturing jobs at an even lower wage, and if they complained, they were told by their bosses that if they didn't like it, the bosses would just hire blacks who would gladly work for decreased wages and unsafe conditions. Now, the Irish and Black confrontation was after the Civil War. Instead of seeing the bosses as the enemy or problem, the Irish and Blacks turned their anger on each other. The same "bosses" have been playing the game for ages!!! So, when are we going to wake up and realize who is the real problem?????

[Hekate]

55. Alas, we have turned back the clock to the time of the Robber Barons

Like most of us here at DU, I have watched with dawning horror.

Hekate

[Lifelong Protester]

59. Damn good stuff!

I agree with you on RFK (Obviously, see my avatar, he is something of a hero to me).

[obreaslan]

28. Black 47 did a great song about it too.....K&R!

Song Sample Here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0001CNR20/104-9275871-2307157?v=glance&n=5174

Lyrics Here:
http://www.lyricsdownload.com/47-black-san-patricio-brigade-lyrics.html

[K8-EEE]

30. Interesting And Similar To Spain/USA

My grandfather was a Basque who came here after the Spanish Civil War -- it's an interesting corner of history that most people don't know, that volunteers from the US (and many other nations) came to aid Spain when they were fighting the fascist takeover. The government here didn't want to get involved but lots of citizens, many of whom were later persecuted and blacklisted in the McCarthy era for being "commie" sympathizers.

[ourbluenation]

31. The Da and I have been to Mexico many times and he always

commented how much the Irish and the Mexicans were alike. Very friendly, open and warm people. Great post - emailing it to him now. Thx!

[newspeak]

32. yes, new about the St. Patrick's Brigade

as was lectured in our history class-they went to join forces in Texas against the Mexicans and witnessed such atrocities against the Mexicans, including the desecration of a Catholic church-Mexicans being murdered in the church during services, that they defected to the Mexican side. To this day, the brigade is still honored by the Mexican people. I believe there is a movie, (done in the nineties?) about the brigade.

[Bridget Burke]

37. Many of the San Patricios had not been drafted.

They were veterans of European wars & had much to offer the Army. But the US Army reflected the strong anti-Catholic prejudice found in the USA; there were no Catholic chaplains. And our side committed atrocities & destruction of churches during the war. The US Army was not as guilty as "Volunteers" (mostly from the South) & the Texas Rangers.

The story of the San Patricios has been neglected by history. Even the original sources are sparse. Some trial records say the Irish just got drunk & deserted. Mexico did promise land & money as incentive. And some DID feel they had more in common with the Catholic Mexicans than the Protestant imperialists. There are no San Patricio memoirs. And no photographs--the technology was not there yet.

Many Irish served the US loyally. And the desertion rate during the Mexican War was the highest of any US war. However, most of the deserters just ran away--back home or off to seek their fortunes. Some of the San Patricios were not deserters; they were Irish (& others) who had lived in Mexico before the war.

www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/SS/qis1.html

Although we have no photographs of the San Patricios, we know the faces of many veterans of the Mexican War from later in life. A generation of West Point graduates got their first experience of War in Mexico. Then the struggle over whether the newly-won lands should be slave or free led to their next War. Those privileged young men who had been given fine educations by the USA led armies against each other in the Civil War. None of the Confederates were later hanged as traitors--unlike so many of the San Patricios.

"The Irish Soldiers of Mexico" by Michael Hogan & "Rogue's March: John Riley and the St. Patrick's Battalion" by Peter F. Stevens are good recent books. But there is much we will never know about the San Patricio soldiers.

[mattclearing]

40. K&R.

Great post.

[NVMojo]

41. this country has had a sick streak since inception

thanks for posting!

[Xithras]

42. They weren't drafted.

There was no draft in the US between the War of 1812 and the Civil War, the Irish were all volounteers.

What the military did was set up recruiting centers right alongside the docks. When the Irish came over, typically with nothing to their name, they were immediately hit up by the military to join. To many of these men, the promise of decent clothing, steady food, and a paycheck while they were getting acquainted with their new homeland was too good to pass up.

The downside of this practice, and the reason it was eventually abandoned, was that the new immigrants typically had little loyalty to their new country. They'd never really been exposed to it and had little or no family in the country, so there wasn't a whole lot of "die for freedom" spirit in the military in those days. Desertions like the St. Patricks Brigade simply underscored that point.

[MsUSA]

43. I'm 100% Irish, and did not know about this.....

very interesting, and thanks for posting.

[Czolgosz]

45. Here's an interesting immigration proposal I heard in South Texas:

A South Texas friend (who's grandparents happen to be from Mexico) asked me why no one was proposing this cost efficient, effective, and benign means of enforcing immigration laws:

Simply ticket every employer $600 for each illegal immigrant employed. Don't arrest anyone and don't deport anyone -- just ticket their employers $600 per illegal employee. Empower all municipalities and all counties and all states to enforce this law. Take the $600 fine, and divide it $200 to the whistle blower who reported the law-violating employer, $200 to the municipality that enforced the law, and $200 to the federal government. If the same employer has the same or different illegal employees working the next day, ticket her again.

Can there be any doubt that this would (1) dry up the illegal labor market and give adequate incentive for illegal workers to go home and (2) cut down the mishaps, civil rights violations, and administrative costs associated with the arrest and deportation of illegal immigrants?

Personally, I favor allowing immigrants to come to America and I'm not particularly obsessed with illegal immigration, but if someone else considers illegal immigration to be a grave threat, why wouldn't this plan fix it in a cost-efficient and humane way?

[FooFootheSnoo]

50. I've said that for a long time now

Fine the people that hire the illegal immigrants. When there is no work, there will be fewer illegal immigrants. Just common sense.

[mitchtv]

53. the only real anwer

[WinkyDink]

48. County Donegal ancestors here. That said, wasn't too fond of

discovering the anti-British, shall we say, sentiment during WWII.

Never heard before of this brigade.

And the best pizza is on Capri!

[malaise]

49. Another great post today

Thank you.

[FooFootheSnoo]

51. Really interesting story

I've seen a few bars and restaurants throughout my life that had Mexican/Irish names and always wondered if there was a connection between the Mexicans and Irish. Now I know what it is. Thanks.

[pitohui]

54. well that's a heck of an argument

you want to me cheer on a group of guys who betrayed our country and fought against us in time of war, it ain't gonna happen

i'm fairly sure jfk wouldn't be cheering on the mexican army while it marched on usa soldiers, sorry to disillusion you, contrary to myth and legend, the pope is the ruler of vatican city, he doesn't tell all the catholics to get together and make war on the rest of us when they're feeling oppressed

[RagingInMiami]

58. why are you killing the messenger?

It wasn't me that said the Irish were going to take orders from the Pope, it was the Americans living here at the time.

And they may have betrayed the country, but how can you blame them, considering how they were treated at the time?

[Lifelong Protester]

60. I'm afraid the Mexican War was another in a long, long

history of wars of agression that we had no real business starting. I never cottoned to the whole "manifest destiny" theory of James K. Polk. And he thought HE was taking his marching orders from God.

[BigBearJohn]

57. Thanks for posting this. Love it!!

[JohnKleeb]

61. Yes actually

Didnt know much but knew that there were Irish Americans who sided with Mexico during the Mexican American War.

[ecstatic]

62. If JFK were alive, I suspect he'd enforce the laws of the land nt

[RagingInMiami]

63. Or revise the outdated laws of the land

[Greylyn58]

64. Great Post!

I also wonder how America might have changed after having JFK for two terms and then having Bobby Kennedy possibly elected for 2 Presidental terms after him.

I think we would be on a much different path than the one we find ourselves on now. How I wish it could have been so.