Reflexive Research Project Step 2

Student: Instructor: Course: Date: Ethnic History: Exploring My Ancestry Ethnic history plays a vital role in forming personal and general perceptions of the individual. Being of Irish and Mexican descent, I will focus on the reasons for moving and how these reasons impact the individual’s, society, and personal identity’s ethnic memory and the role of oral history in ethnic memory. Knowing my ancestors’ Irish and Mexican histories gives me a background to understand how history and social norms affected me as a person. Reasons for Emigration The main factor for emigrants from Ireland was the great hunger, a time from 1845 to 1852 in which the crop of potatoes, the staple food of Ireland, was destroyed by mass starvation. This resulted in famine, poverty, and diseases that affected many Irish, making them seek better lives in America (Devlin 38- 61). According to a letter from an Irish immigrant to his relatives in Ireland, found in the National Archives, the primary motivation for leaving was survival: “We could not stay, for there was no food, no work, and no future in the old country.” As a result, people lost all the possible means of a healthy economic life and were forced to leave the old; now, the new world offered them the only chance to survive. The Mexican side of my ancestry had other issues to deal with. The primary reasons that motivated people to emigrate to the United States included economic fluctuations, political insecurity, and upheavals experienced during the Mexican Revolution between 1910 and 1920. At this time, people of Mexican origin migrated to the United States to escape violence and seek employment and political stability. This is evident according to Key’s US immigration primary source, a report from the era that notes that Mexicans crossed the border to work in the American farms and railways. The report further states that Mexican laborers were perceived as a not-very-costly workforce that was used and abused for mere economic benefit. However, they immigrated for better refuge from the prevailing hardships back home. These reasons for emigration, such as famine and political unrest, have informed how I perceive my ethnic origin. My roots on both sides of my family would come to America for survival and the need to gain stability, which affected my personality positively as I developed the ability to bear some hardships. These pains my ancestors went through helped me recall that there is an ability in the willingness to leave one’s country and live in another country. Influence on Self-Identification The experience of the concept of emigration and the reasons for it have also defined my self-identification. My roots are Irish and Mexican, and I have a...