NANA As A Tool For Influence


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In his blog post, Lewis mentioned that in Richard Jensen’s “No Irish Need Apply” “there appears to be a definite lack of sufficient support to argue that the Irish were discriminated against under the NINA ideology, I believe his claim that the Irish used the NINA slogan as a protective tool falls short of his own criticism.” I disagree with this assertion, because Jensen provides clear evidence of the Irish memorializing NANA in weird and perplexing ways. While I agree with Lewis in that there is not enough evidence to claim the Irish were discriminated against, but can an argument not be made about the Irish and their intentions when it was revealed they continued to cite NANA as their main point against discrimination towards Irish Americans even if all evidence proved it wrong?. In other words, while we may agree that Jensen’s assertion that NANA was used as a “protective tool” may not be a strong argument, we cannot overlook the discrepancies between the Irish’s perception of NANA and its actual impact on their rights. Jensen’s actual findings which I will outline here showed NANA did not have as dominant of a presence as first advertised by the Irish, creating a perplexing but fascinating narrative.  First, Jensen claims that the fact that Irish even remotely remember NANA signs is perplexing, “the fact that Irish vividly ‘remember’ NINA signs is a curious historical puzzle.” For Jensen, the fact that NANA has solidified into fabric of memories of Irish Americans reveals far more than simply their views on discrimination or even NANA for that matter. Moreover, as deep hatred and discrimination is embedded within the NANA ideology, one would expect for a clear opponent or business that is “the culprit.” That, as Jensen points out, is not the case as “no particular business enterprise is named as a culprit.” What is even more fascinating is that while NANA may seem as a policy which attacked all minority groups the same, Jensen explains that “only Irish Catholics have reported seeing the sign in America-no Protestant, no Jew, no non-Irish Catholic” (405) In conclusion, it seems that there is ample evidence to suggest that Irish Americans, specifically, utilized NANA as a tool for influence.