How the Irish Became White, by Noel Ignatiev (Routledge, n.p.g.)

In early 19th century America the Irish were unwelcome emigrants - poor, unskilled, and sometimes in troublesome, bog Catholics in a Protestant culture, many of them illiterate or speaking English badly. Their struggle to escape from the ghettoes in New York, Philadelphia, Boston and other cities was a hard one, using such machinery as the labour unions, the Catholic Church, the Democratic Party to achieve a certain degree of respectability and social acceptance. As in Britain, they were often involved in labour agitation, but they were also hostile to the Negro population, and Irishmen played a prominent role in anti Negro violence. At under 200 pages (plus notes) this book is a little short for its complex subject.