Might YOU be an Anchor Baby?

[HockeyMom]

Do you really know if you trace your family tree far enough
back?  How many people living in Arizona are so sure they
aren't?  I have a niece who lives in Phoenix so this would
apply to her. 

My immigrant ancestor was smuggled aboard a ship in Belfast to
work in the West Point Foundry.  The Foundry owner went to
Ireland because he couldn't get Americans to work there.  It
was a very grueling, dangerous job. Sound familiar?  These
skilled tradesmen were Catholics who were discriminated
against in Protestant Northern Ireland.  They left for a
better life in America.

Although I don't know what their wages were relative to the
times, I do know that this owner built his workers houses, a
Church, and a school where their children could be educated. 
My great-great-grandfather, an anchor baby, went to this
school until he was 16 years old.  How many "real"
Americans at that time when to school AT ALL back in those
days? 

At 16 my gggrandfather, the anchor baby, enlisted in the Union
Army under the Conscription Act.  Basically, he received a sum
of money to take the place of a rich man's son.  He was
wounded and received a Pension for his injuries.  Imagine
that?  Government paying American tax dollars to these people.

If you subscribe to their theory of illegals and anchor
babies, each of their succeeding generations fought in
America's Wars (World War 1, World 2, and Nam).  I wonder how
many of these anchor babies have died for America in past
generations?

Or perhaps, as in the case of my ancestors, they weren't
MEXICANS?  Seriously, that is what I think is at the root of
all this.  Yes, I know the Irish, and other ethnicities, had a
hard time in American and were discriminated against, but my
illegal ancestors came from a country which spoke English as
their native tongue. In a crowd of people, you would not be
able to tell them from "real" Americans.  

So to sum it up, my illegal ancestor came to America to do a
job Americans wouldn't do.  He had children who now would be
considered anchor babies.  As such, I am an anchor baby. 
Might you be?

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[Ozymanithrax]

2. The right to remain silent does not include the capacity to do so.

My thanks to the red neck comedians.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

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[AtheistCrusader]

4. I'm a mutt. My ancestors are from all over Europe, and the ME.

Ultimately we're all from Africa anyway.

[slackmaster]

5. I'm in the third generation born in America to Germans who immigrated legally on my father's side

My ancestry traces back to the 17th Century on my mother's side.

[HockeyMom]

6. This post has nothing to do with gun ownership

It's about illegal immigrants and their children. I thought I posted this in the general discussion. If I put it in the gun forum, that was a mistake.

[EFerrari]

7. My mom's side all were sponsored, so no one was undocumented

on the Latino side of my family. My father's people from northern Germany, I don't know. It's possible!

[Igel]

8. You don't really have to trace your family very far back.

I'm not an "anchor baby." At least one of my parents was a US citizen before I was born, and neither got citizenship by virtue of my being born in the US.

You use an erroneous definition to produce anachronism. "Anchor baby" is not a designation that can pass down for generations within a family. And it requires a certain legal context for it to apply.

It really doesn't matter how my ancestors came here. It was long enough ago there was no formal immigration registration process, and since there was no such thing as a "legal immigrant" there was no category of "illegal immigrant." When my ancestors arrived, very little rested on being a citizen, there was pretty much zero risk of deportation. So when they had kids they didn't serve as anchor babies, keeping the family from being force-drifted.

Even after they started registering immigrants, "illegal immigrant" didn't mean very much for quite a while.

[11 Bravo]

9. Michelle Malkin (nee Maglalang) is an anchor baby. Irony, anyone?

[one-eyed fat man]

10. Citizenship & 14th Amendment

Your 1840's Irish ancestor would be tough to define as an "anchor baby" since the Fourteenth Amendment which absolutely granted citizenship to anyone born US soil was only passed AFTER the Civil War. The reason that provision was included was so newly freed slaves could not be deported or denied their citizenship. Remember, the IMPORTATION of slaves was illegal in the United States after 1808. Slaves were bred and their offspring were born slaves and raised on the plantation like livestock. The Thirteenth Amendment may have freed the slaves, but it did not make them citizens of the United States.

Your ancestors from the early 1800's very likely came from Ireland as indentured servants. There was no smuggling involved. An indentured servant was a worker, typically a laborer or tradesman, under contract to an employer for a fixed period of time, typically three to seven years, in exchange for their transportation, food, clothing, lodging and other necessities.

Often employers had complete communities for these workers. Large mills were established in New England in the early to mid 19th century. The region became a manufacturing powerhouse along rivers because the rivers drove the mills and supported the mill towns.

So someone needing workers for a foundry for example would recruit workers who wanted passage to the United States in exchange for their labor. There was nothing illegal about it, it was common.

As for naturalized citizens, aside from legally entering the country, it does require a statement of intent to become a citizen and an oath of allegiance to the United States. It also requires passing a test on US history, the Constitution and the American system of government.

There are high school graduates, born and raised here, that would be put "back on the boat" if they had to pass the test.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/blinstst.htm