Research Catalog

Title

Who's your Paddy? : racial expectations and the struggle for Irish American identity / Jennifer Nugent Duffy.

Author

Duffy, Jennifer Nugent.

Publication

New York : New York University Press, [2014]

Supplementary Content

Cover image

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

viii, 301 pages : illustrations, map; 24 cm.

Summary

"After all the green beer has been poured and the ubiquitous shamrocks fade away, what does it mean to be Irish American besides St. Patrick's Day? Who's Your Paddy traces the evolution of "Irish" as a race-based identity in the U.S. from the 19th century to the present day. Exploring how the Irish have been and continue to be socialized around race, Jennifer Nugent Duffy argues that Irish identity must be understood within the context of generational tensions between different waves of Irish immigrants as well as the Irish community's interaction with other racial minorities. Using historic and ethnographic research, Duffy sifts through the many racial, class, and gendered dimensions of Irish-American identity by examining three distinct Irish cohorts in Greater New York: assimilated descendants of nineteenth-century immigrants; "white flighters" who immigrated to postwar America and fled places like the Bronx for white suburbs like Yonkers in the 1960s and 1970s; and the newer, largely undocumented migrants who began to arrive in the 1990s. What results is a portrait of Irishness as a dynamic, complex force in the history of American racial consciousness, pertinent not only to contemporary immigration debates but also to the larger questions of what it means to belong, what it means to be American. Jennifer Nugent Duffy is Associate Professor of History at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury, Connecticut. "--

Series Statement

Nation of newcomers : immigrant history as American history

Uniform Title

Nation of newcomers.

Subjects

• Irish Americans > New York (State) > Yonkers > Social conditions
• Irish Americans > Race identity > New York (State) > New York
• African Americans > Relations with Irish Americans
• Irish Americans > New York (State) > New York > History
• Irish Americans > New York (State) > Yonkers > History
• Irish Americans > New York (State) > New York > Social conditions

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 247-290) and index.

Contents

Introduction: Who's Your Paddy? Irish Immigrant Generations in Greater New York -- From City of Hills to City of Vision: The History of Yonkers, New York -- Good Paddies and Bad Paddies: The Evolution of Irishness as a Race-Based Tradition in the United States -- Bar Wars: Irish Bar Politics in Neoliberal Ireland and Neoliberal Yonkers -- They're Just Like Us: Good Paddies and Everyday Irish Racial Expectations -- Bad Paddies Talk Back -- Paddy and Paddiette Go to Washington: Race and Transnational Immigration Politics.

Call Number

IEH 14-617

ISBN

• 9780814785027 (hardback : acid-free paper)
• 0814785026 (hardback : acid-free paper)
• 9780814785034 (paper : acid-free paper)
• 0814785034 (paper : acid-free paper)

LCCN

2013023711

OCLC

844308869

Author

Duffy, Jennifer Nugent.

Title

Who's your Paddy? : racial expectations and the struggle for Irish American identity / Jennifer Nugent Duffy.

Publisher

New York : New York University Press, [2014]

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Nation of newcomers : immigrant history as American history

Nation of newcomers.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 247-290) and index.

Connect to:

Cover image

Research Call Number

IEH 14-617