Irish Immigrants Coming To America Essay

Coming to America were the Irish immigrant dream, to them it was “the Land of Promise” (Takaki 134). From all the letters they got from friends and family in the United States, it said that America had jobs, own room, and no tyranny. The Irish were being put out by the English Prospero's, they left because of the opportunities America or the suffering inflicted by the Potatoes Famine. Only 14 percent of Ireland the Irish owned. They felt like a stranger in their own country. The were ruled by the English and “forced to rent or lease land from England landlords” (Takaki 133). The English were able to make a profit by changing the land from a tillage to a ranching, so they didn’t need many worker as before. Irish families weren’t living in a healthy living condition. They lived in a single room cabin, with mud on the wall, a straw roof, with a hole in the roof, and a single bed made of straws. Some people became migratory workers, where they leave for the spring for agriculture, then return in the fall with money for rent. They were only able to grow potatoes, so they ate potatoes and one meal a day. To survive on that one meal they would cook the potatoes raw, so it could take longer to digest. Then the Potatoes Famine occurred where a blight had destroyed the crop and “one million people died from hunger and sickness” (Takaki 135). They described the town as , “crowded with gaunt wanderer, sauntering to and fro with hopeless air and hunger-struck look”

Robert Whyte was one of the passengers on the ship who experienced the tragic that happened to the Irish immigrants. Whyte says, “my heart sickens when I think upon the fatal scene of the awfully tragic drama” (Whyte 104). People had to leave their families knowing that they would never see them again. The prices increased so many farmer were left to starvation. People were dying because of lack of food, lack of sanitation, and lack of medical facilities. When they died they throw their bodies into the