Ethnic Groups and Discrimination

Ethnic Groups and Discrimination
Almost a million Irish Immigrants came to America in the years of what is called the Great Potato Famine. Never has there been such a poor large group of individuals that has entered the United States of America as the poor refugees of Ireland had. The Irish were considered the lowest on the society scale and were without any help. Just to survive daily was to be a battle for basic human survival for them. The Irish Immigrants were not only faced with the hardship of survival but also dealt with all kinds of discrimination, which included relining, double jeopardy, segregation, and even institutional discrimination.
Once the Irish Immigrants arrived at the ports they were greeted by people called runners. Runners were hired to drag an immigrant to a place where they could have shelter and warm food for extra ordinarily large amounts of money.   The Irish were forced to live in shabby tenements, down in the damp cellars and basements. They were forced to live with other immigrants in these squalors so called rooms for rent. Outside many cities where what were known as Shanty Town or Irish Town, the Irish were living in lean-tos which were no better than the cellars or basements when they first arrived. The Irish immigrants were considered filth and a bad influence in the nearby cities. Many Irish immigrants were brought to America to work because they were known as hard workers and they needed money. Although most of the Irish immigrants had employment and were not poor, they were still forced to live in their communities with the other Irish immigrants. This enabled them to live slightly better than their counterparts in the tenements (Hy Kinsella, 2008). The Irish immigrants were constantly dissuaded from renting any vacant apartments outside their community and were sent back to those areas. The segregation and relining was largely prevalent in the 1850.

The Irish had to work dangerous jobs in factories, building canals,...