Que
aʒɑ̃ prɔvɔkatœr
- Joined
- Dec 3, 2009
- Posts
- 39,882
Several years ago there was a book recounting an incident from around the turn of the 20th century. Some nuns that ran an orphanage in New York had placed a few dozen of their Irish children with good Catholic families down around Bisbee, Arizona, when the copper boom was under way. Of course, this being Arizona, these were mostly Mexican families. This didn't mean anything to the nuns -- Mexicans or Spanish speakers in general weren't familiar to them, and all they cared about was the kids having the "right" religious upbringing. But when the train arrived, the white townspeople were outraged -- "we can't allow these white children to be adopted by these colored families!" A lot of mob behavior ensued. The funny thing was that the kids had to go west to become thought of as "white;" back in New York, they were just poor Irish orphans.
Point being that it's all fluid.
Weird, unrelated coincidence:
In the copper mine up here Hispanics (several generation American mostly) are the majority. As a result white kids get a hard time in the otherwise decent school in the company town. Lots of white families consequently commute 45 miles. So a friend of mine that I assumed was hispanic based on his general appearance was moving his family 45 miles away for the schools. I remarked that I understood the school here was likely as good. He expressed concern about the treatment his kids were getting. I was puzzled. Aren't you hispanic?? No, I'm Irish.