M&E 2 - Experience of Immigrants Flashcards
Irish Catholic - low wages
Irish Catholic immigrants were willing to work for low wages. This led them to be resented because it meant that many Scottish workers were forced out of a job because they were more expensive than the Irish Catholic workers to pay.
Irish Catholic - lodging
Irish Catholic immigrants were often poor and lived in overcrowded lodging houses. This caused them to be resented because they were blamed for spreading diseases such as typhus and were generally seen as dirtier than Scots.
Irish Catholic - religious differences
Religious differences also caused the Scots to resent Irish Catholic immigrants because Scotland was a protestant country in 1830 and only 30000 out of 1.5 million Scots were Catholic.
Irish Catholic- benefit scroungers
The majority of Irish Catholic immigrants were very poor and arrived in Scotland with very little money. This caused resentment amongst Scots because it was believed that the Irish moved to Scotland in order to access the help available to the poor known as poor relief. The Irish Catholic were seen as the equivalent of benefit scroungers.
Irish Catholic - strike breakers
Irish Catholic immigrants were accused of being strike-breakers. This caused them to be resented by the Scots because the Scottish workers were unable to fight for better working conditions.
Irish Catholic - sporting identity
A separate sporting identity was created for the Catholic Irish as new football teams such as Edinburgh Hibernian and Celtic (1888) were formed.
Irish Catholic - education
The Education (Scotland) Act 1918 gave catholic schools the right to teach the catholic religion and select their own teachers.
Jews - self-employed
Jewish immigrants opened bakeries and butchers as well as becoming pedlars or hawkers. This caused them to have a positive experience in Scotland because the work they carried out was different from other immigrant groups and they were not seen as a threat as they were generally self-employed.
Lithuanians - miners
Lithuanian miners joined unions and took part in 1912 strike alongside Scottish workers to fight for better pay and conditions. This caused them to have a positive experience because they assured the Scottish people of their loyalty and worked with them.
Lithuanians - traditions
Lithuanians traditionally celebrated weddings, birthdays and festivals for days which caused them to gain a bad reputation from the Scots because they were accused of having no moral fibre and indulging in too much heavy drinking.
Lithuanians - changing names
In the 20th century some Lithuanians chose to integrate more into Scottish society so changed their names to Scottish sounding ones like Black and Smith
Italians - Ice cream/fish&chips
Italian immigrants focused on the catering trade and introduced fish and chip shops and ice cream parlours which became extremely popular in Scotland.
Opened on Sundays which was deemed very wrong as Sunday should be spent reflecting with God.
Gained a reputation for causing the unruly behaviour of youths as it gave them somewhere to socialise
Italians - prejudice
Italians faced some prejudice from the Scots for being Catholic.
Name calling on streets and in school
Reached peak in 1940 when Mussolini declared war on Britain.
Jews - antisemitism
Resentment towards Jewish immigrants grew and newspapers also became involved
This caused Jews to have a negative experience in Scotland because anti-semitic comments appeared in newspapers all over the country claiming that Britain had become a dumping ground for undesirables. The Daily Mail described Jews as “alien danger: immigrants infected with loathsome disease”
Jews - sweated trades
Jewish immigrants mainly worked in sweated trades. This caused them to have a negative experience in Scotland because they were forced to work very long hours for low pay.
Jewish immigrants were also falsely connected to the outbreak of diseases such as Cholera in the late nineteenth century
