Three birds meet one stone.

Bill Bryson blogging for Bryce, Irish blogging for Travis, and immigration blogging for myself. Does the internet get any better? I submit it does not.

From Bryson's Made in America

"If one attitude can be said to characterize America's regard for immigration over the past two hundred years it is the belief that while immigration was unquestionably a wise and prescient thing in the case of one's parents or grandparents, it really ought to stop now."

Slow clap.

But here's where it really gets good:

"From the earliest days, immigrants aroused alarm and attracted epithets. For the most part, early nicknames for foreigners were only mildly abusive, or even rather backhandedly affectionate. This was particularly the case with the Irish, whose fondness for drinking and brawling and perceived lack of acquaintance with the higher mental processes inspired a number of mostly good-natured terms of derogation, so that a police station was an Irish clubhouse, a wheelbarrow was an Irish buggy, bricks were Irish confetti, and an Irish beauty was a woman with two black eyes."

Two thoughts:

1. Those don't actually seem to be all that good-natured, but maybe that's just me.
2. The Border Patrol have a type of truck that we tend to call "dog catchers" because they resemble the type of vehicle used by animal control. I don't really like using the term because it sort of implies, by default, that migrants are the dogs, but the only other term I know for such a truck is a "paddywagon," which clearly has some pretty negative connotations for the Irish. So long after the Irish are really known for being arrested in masse, whether the stereotype was true or not, the name sticks. Language is fascinating.