TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/032089/03208900.047

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 6KB | 100 lines

NATION, Page 30

The Re-Greening of America

A new wave of Irish immigrants is showing its muscle


    In scores of U.S. cities this week, Americans of Irish descent
will celebrate St. Patrick's Day by donning green hats, marching
through the streets shouting "Erin go bragh!" and proudly
proclaiming their Irishness to anyone who will listen. Yet as many
as 100,000 natives of Ireland, newly arrived in the U.S., will
hesitate to join the parades. They live in the fearful shadow world
of the illegal alien.

    Like their more numerous Hispanic and Asian counterparts, the
undocumented "new Irish" switch jobs often, worry about the costs
of sickness without Medicaid, and can do little but gnash their
teeth when family crises occur in their homeland, because to leave
the U.S. might mean never to return. "You often find them trying
to put on New York accents while they serve you in a restaurant,
just so they can meld into the background and not be found out,"
says Ray O'Hanlon, the national editor of the New York City-based
Irish Echo newspaper. "This is rather sad."

    But unlike the flood of Third World immigrants, the Irish come
with advantages: white skin, good education, a knowledge of the
language and a talent for politics that would make Boston's
legendary Mayor James Michael Curley beam with pride. On the East
Coast, they have revitalized neighborhoods deserted by their
American cousins. Local shops sell everything from soda bread to
Irish candies and bacon. The bleachers are filled for Irish
football at Gaelic Park in the Bronx and Dilboy Field near Boston.
In New York's Irish neighborhoods, pubs are packed on weekends. "At
home in County Offaly, the bars are empty," says Mary Cahill, 26,
who has been in America two years. "Most of the young people are
in the U.S., Britain or Australia."

    The surge of new arrivals began in 1982, propelled by a
debt-plagued Irish economy in which unemployment soared to almost
19% last year, sometimes reaching twice that for young people under
25. Even Ireland's Prime Minister Charles Haughey seemed to
encourage the exodus.

    Most of the Irish arriving in the U.S. have simply stayed on
once their six-month tourist or work visas expired. They insist
they are in America by stealth because there was no way for them
to gain legal entry. The newcomers argue that the U.S. immigration
act of 1965 discriminated against the Irish and other Europeans by
giving preference to applicants who had family members legally in
the U.S. Since Europeans had not been moving in large numbers to
America for many years, they were all but locked out.  The
non-Europeans, mostly Asians and Latin Americans, used the family
preference to create a relative-to-relative chain that accounts for
more than 90% of the annual inflow of 600,000 immigrants. In 1987,
for example, 601,516 people were granted permanent U.S. residence;
only 3,060 of them were Irish.

    The hard-fought 1986 immigration reform also bypassed the Irish
aliens. Aimed mostly at the U.S. southern border, it granted
amnesty to foreigners who could show they were in the U.S. before
1982. That was just before the latest Irish influx began, cutting
off these new arrivals.

    These perceived injustices have unified Irish Americans, both
legal and alien, in a way seldom seen in the often contentious
community. In New York this week a bishop from Ireland will lead
a Mass of Hope in St. Patrick's Cathedral for the new immigrants.
An Irish Immigration Reform Movement has created chapters in more
than a dozen cities to seek changes in U.S. immigration laws,
including the right of the illegals to seek permanent residency.
It employs a full-time lobbyist in Washington.

    When the Irish get together, many U.S. politicians listen.
Boston's Mayor Raymond Flynn last year announced that "the welcome
mat is out" for Irish aliens, and has created an office to provide
immigrants with legal aid. The administration of New York Mayor Ed
Koch declared that the Irish aliens "have nothing to fear in
utilizing fully the services" of the city. New York even granted
$30,000 to help finance a counseling hot line for Irish immigrants.

    At the federal level, the Irish lobby won a fight in 1987 to
create 10,000 special visas for the 36 countries that the 1965 act
treated unfairly. Awarded in a lottery that gave priority to those
who applied first, 40% of the visas went to the Irish, who had been
closely tracking the process. Last year Congress decided to make
an additional 30,000 of these lottery visas available in the next
two years, using leftover applications from the first drawing.
Since the Irish sent in a disproportionate number of entries, they
are expected to do well again. Yet another lottery for 20,000 visas
will be held later this year, drawing from new applicants.

    Still struggling with the touchy question of who should be
admitted to the U.S., Congress will consider a bill this year under
which 120,000 of the annual allotted visas would be linked to such
considerations as education, profession, work experience and
English-language capability. Although the Irish reform group is
ardently supporting it, the bill has some opponents, who claim it
is elitist. The Statue of Liberty, notes Massachusetts Congressman
Barney Frank, does not say, "Send us your upwardly mobile." On the
other hand, argues Pat Hurley, co-founder of the Irish Reform
Movement, "the attributes that we have -- education, skills and
ability to communicate well -- are what America wants." To say
nothing of the political ties.