discriminated against in the U.S., mainly by people referred to as "Nativists." One might argue that the Nativists were the predecessors of today's Teabaggers. Anyhow, the Nativists did their best to prevent Catholics (mainly the Irish) from immigrating, building churches, etc. They even attacked and killed a few.
Anti-Catholic nativism in the 19th century
Nativist outbursts occurred in the Northeast from the 1830s to the 1850s, primarily in response to a surge of Irish Catholic immigration. In 1836, Samuel F. B. Morse ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of New York City on a Nativist ticket, receiving 1,496 votes. In New York City, an Order of United Americans was founded as a nativist fraternity, following the Philadelphia Nativist Riots of the preceding spring and summer, in December, 1844.
In 1849–50 Charles B. Allen founded a secret nativist society called the Order of the Star Spangled Banner in New York City. In order to join the Order, a man had to be twenty-one, a Protestant, a believer in God, and willing to obey without question the dictates of the order. Members of the Order became known as the Know Nothings (a label applied to them because if asked they said they "know nothing about" the secret society).
The Nativists went public in 1854 when they formed the 'American Party', which was especially hostile to the immigration of Catholics and campaigned for laws to require longer wait time between immigration and naturalization. (The laws never passed.) It was at this time that the term "nativist" first appears, opponents denounced them as "bigoted nativists." Former President Millard Fillmore ran on the American Party ticket for the Presidency in 1856. The American Party also included many ex-Whigs who ignored nativism, and included (in the South) a few Catholics whose families had long lived in America. Conversely, much of the opposition to Catholics came from Protestant Irish immigrants and German Lutheran immigrants who were not native at all and can hardly be called "nativists."
This form of nationalism is often identified with xenophobia and anti-Catholic sentiment (anti-Papism). In Charlestown, Mass., a nativist mob attacked and burned down a Catholic convent in 1834 (no one was injured). In the 1840s, small scale riots between Catholics and nativists took place in several American cities. In Philadelphia in 1844, for example, a series of nativist assaults on Catholic churches and community centers resulted in the loss of lives and the professionalization of the police force. In Louisville, Ky., election-day rioters killed at least 22 people in attacks on German and Irish Catholics on Aug. 6, 1855, in what became known as "Bloody Monday." Nativist sentiment experienced a revival in the 1890s, led by Protestant Irish immigrants hostile to Catholic immigration.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nativism_%28politics%29Sounds an awful lot like what's happening to Muslims these days. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.