Senate Majority leader optimistic on immigration reform prospects
Friday, November 28th, 2008There has been much speculation on whether and how quickly comprehensive immigration reform might be tackled in the US. There has been widespread hope that there might be another effort at immigration reform, which would presumably benefit the estimated 50,000 Irish among the US’s 12 million undocumented, soon into Barack Obama’s new term.
An interview with Harry Reid earlier this month, by Deborah Barfield Berry of the Gannett News Service, indicates that President-elect Barack Obama and Senator John McCain, who spearheaded prior efforts at bipartisan immigration reform, have been in discussion on the issue of immigration reform. Harry Reid is the Senate Majority Leader, and the interview from which this is excerpted focused on priorities for next year.
Q: With more Democrats in the Senate and the House and a Democrat in the White House, how do you see congressional efforts playing out on such issues as health care and immigration?
On immigration, there’s been an agreement between (President-elect Barack) Obama and (Arizona Republican Sen. John) McCain to move forward on that. … We’ll do that. We have to get this economy stuff figured out first, so I think we’ll have a shot at doing something on health care in the next Congress for sure.
Q: Will there be as much of a fight on immigration as last time?
A: We’ve got McCain and we’ve got a few others. I don’t expect much of a fight at all. Now health care is going to be difficult. That’s a very complicated issue. We debated at great length immigration. People understand the issues very well. We have not debated health care, so that’s going to take a lot more time to do.
Emigrant stories make great Christmas gifts
Friday, November 28th, 2008There have been plenty of emigration-related publications this year that would make delightful Christmas gifts. Several Irish centres have produced oral histories detailing the lives of emigrants to America and Canada, as well as the stories of those who have returned to Ireland.
Here’s the rundown of this year’s publications:
“Memory Brings Us Back: Irish Stories of Farewells and Fortunes”: This film by Derek Woods is the followup to “While Mem’ry Brings Us Back Again” – the 2006 hit book, produced by New York’s Aisling Irish Centre, detailing the lives of older Irish emigrants living in America. This DVD tells the stories of ten men and women who left for America between 1929 and 1965. With music by Joannie Madden, this film is sure to be a treat.
Order both the DVD and the original book at the Aisling Irish Community Centre’s website.
“Coming Home” – Frances Browner, the editor of “When Mem’ry Brings Us Back Again”, has returned to Ireland and compiled the tales of 36 emigrants who returned to their native land thanks to the help of the Safe Home organisation. Safe Home reports that this is a hot seller for Christmas. Their website says, “Frances Browner has conducted thirty-six fascinating interviews that highlight the heartache of leaving home; the struggles and successes of survival in a new land; the joy, and sometimes trauma, of returning.”
Buy it at the Safe Home website.
“A Story to be Told”: This gorgeously produced book tells the stories of 129 emigrants to Canada in their own words. Edited by Eleanor McGrath and with photographs by William C. Smith, this book reveals the diversity of the Canadian Irish experience, telling the tales of artists, mothers, a labour leader, a bus driver, a dance teacher, an actor, an engineer, an accountant. Their Irish identities are diverse as well, with tales of people from what seems like every possible background: rural farmers; Belfast Protestants and Catholics; Lithuanian descendants; Jewish Dubliners; American-and English-born, Irish-raised emigrants.
Many of them express love for both Ireland and their adopted home of Canada: “Today I am a very proud Irish Canadian who is blessed to call two of the greatest places on the planet home”, says one interviewee in a sentiment echoed by many others – although some express greater loyalty to one country or the other. A moving book and a great addition to the increasing library of oral history books.
Order the book from the Liffey Press.
For another Canadian treat, Ottawa’s Irish Drop-In Group has created a wonderful miscellany called “Memories of the Past: Stories and Recipes from Ottawa’s Irish Drop-In Groupâ€?. The eclectic collection of reminiscences, poems, jokes, photographs and more is a splendid insight into the lives of the 40+ seniors in the drop-in group, which meets every week at Margaret Mary’s Church in the south end of the Canadian capital. This book has the most ‘home-produced’ feel, but with about 60 recipes, including for such traditional favourites as barm brack, colcannon, champ, porter cake, beef stew, and soda bread, this spiral-bound volume has much to offer.
See the website for the Irish Society of the National Capital Region.
For a musical treat (albeit a commercial one), check out “The Irish Scattering” from Galway traditional singer and musician Sean Keane. Available as both a CD and a DVD, the music tells diverse tales of Irish emigrants through the centuries, including the travels of Irish monks, Irish settlers in Montserrat, Irish soldiers abroad, and the Ulster-Scots in America. The CD features 16 songs; the DVD of the live performance features 28 songs with music and dancing from some of Ireland’s finest practitioners.
Buy it at Sean Keane’s website.
Any suggestions? Post them in the comments below.
ETTW issues response to Paris declaration
Thursday, November 27th, 2008The Europeans Throughout the World have issued a response to the declaration issued at “Europe on the Move: the first meeting of Europeans resident outside their country of originâ€?, held in Paris on 30 September. ETTW, of which Ean is a member, attended the meeting, which was aimed at bringing together emigrant Europeans to work toward a European policy for the EU’s citizens abroad.
The response document is aimed at European institutions to convey the most important issues of the national associations of European expatriates. It covers such topics as consular coordination, prisoners, social security, supplementary pensions, dual nationality, and political recognition.
Europeans Throughout the World is a non-governmental federation of national associations for residents abroad. Visit them at www.euromonde.org.
See the ETTW document: “Towards a European policy on the Europeans established outside their country of origin“.
See Ean’s report on the Paris meeting: “Proposals on European emigrant policy passed at Paris meeting”
Jamaica, US region look to Irish diaspora experience
Wednesday, November 26th, 2008An interesting example of Irish leadership in diaspora thinking took place in New York recently, when Niall Burgess, the Ambassador and Consul General of Ireland to the USA, spoke at the Jamaican consulate on the Irish-American experience. The event was the first in a series of conversations with business and community leaders “aimed at inspiring critical thinking about the development of the Jamaican Diaspora Movement”.
Ambassador Burgess spoke along with Moet Hennessy Chief Operating Officer Jim Clerkin in the event, titled “From immigrant community to Diaspora movement, the Irish Americans: a case study”.
The event is one of a series of events hosted by the Jamaican Consul General in collaboration with the Jamaica Diaspora Advisory Board/NE USA and the Organisation for International Development. The next event in the series will focus on the Indian experience.
Related sites:
And on a related note, Ireland’s experience is helping to inform Pittsburgh’s attempts to keep in touch with its own exiles. The rust belt city has faced outward migration in recent years, and possesses an ’emigrant community’ of loyal former residents.
See this blog entry by geographer and social theorist Jim Russell at the Pittsburgh Quarterly : it references David McWilliams’s diaspora ideas and the Donegal Diaspora Network.
Russell has set up an extremely informative website called “Cleveburgh Diaspora” about the Cleveland-Pittsburgh Diaspora. There is much of worth here about topics such as brain drain, attracting returnees, and encouraging investment from area natives living away.
Visit the Cleveburgh Diaspora website
Mexico works to deepen links with diaspora
Monday, November 24th, 2008The Associated Press has an interesting report on Mexico’s preparations to solidify its ties with its diaspora. Mexico’s emigrants are responsible for the second-largest source of foreign income after oil exports through their remitances. The Mexican government has long expected the remittance stream from its emigrants in the US to dry up someday, so they began to take a more pro-active stance in the relationship with their diaspora in the early 1980s.
The Mexican government set up the “Institute of Mexicans Abroad” in 2003. Carlos Gonzalez Gutierrez, the executive director says, “They’ve tried to take a much more proactive stance with these communities, with the recognition that they might not be coming back”.
The article says:
The institute supports education and cultural programs for Mexican immigrants and their families in the U.S., including Spanish classes, a program that sends Mexican teachers to U.S. districts with a shortage of bilingual educators, donations of Spanish language materials to U.S. schools and libraries, and literacy initiatives for adult immigrants in the U.S.
Other programs are aimed at the children of immigrants – many whom may have been to Mexico – that include sponsoring soccer tournaments, cultural programs, youth exchanges and academic scholarships.
Gutierrez said the Mexican government wants to emphasize to immigrants that it doesn’t just view them as revenue streams for the estimated $23 billion they have pumped into the economy yearly over the past few years.
The Mexican government has also expanded consular services, extending hours and adding mobile services. It has also made changes to allow for dual citizenship and emigrant voting rights.
Further reading:
Barak Obama’s heritage challenges myths
Monday, November 24th, 2008A Queen’s University Belfast professor uses the election of Barack Obama as the launching pad for a discussion of Irish-American myths in an article in this weekend’s Irish Times.
Brian Walker points out that formerly held notions of Irish-American identity have been greatly challenged in recent decades, as studies have revealed the extent to which the Irish American community is Protestant. He points out that it had been assumed that the slight majority of Irish-Americans who are Protestant were thought to have been Scots-Irish, but the 1990 US census only showed about 5 million people calling themselves Scots-Irish, or 12% of the Irish-American community.
While there are several reasons for this, Walker highlights Barack Obama’s Irish ancestor, Fulmouth Kearney, who was a member of the Church of Ireland in Moneygall, Co. Offaly. Walker notes that the presence of Church of Ireland members among the Irish diaspora is too often overlooked.
Read the entire article on the Irish Times website:
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