We discuss Irish immigration to Boston and the origins of immigration restrictions with Hidetaka Hirota, Associate Professor of North American Studies and Migration Studies at Sofia University (Tokyo), and the author of the award-winning book Expelling the Poor: Atlantic Seaboard States and the Nineteenth-Century Origins of American Immigration Policy.
Readings:
Hidetaka Hirota, Expelling the Poor: Atlantic Seaboard State and the Nineteenth Century Origins of American Immigration Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 41-99.
Mark Peterson, The City-State of Boston: The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Power, 1630-1865 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press) 564-577.
Hidetaka Hirota, “The danger of vilifying poor immigrants,” The Washington Post, August 13, 2019.
Mug battle question (courtesy of Prof. Hirota): How much was the bond a ship captain had to provide per passenger likely to become a public charge according to the 1848 MA passenger law, and approximately how much would that be worth in US dollars today?
Answer: $1000, which would be about $32000 today. Congratulations to Mikaela Moskowitz who got it right!
Further reading: I highly recommend reading Prof. Hirota’s columns in the Washington Post and the Irish Times connecting current immigration and citizenship policies to its longer history. You can find links to them on his website here.