“Even as the Civil War provided the Irish-American community with an avenue toward assimilation, the Draft Riots and their aftermath led to lingering tension and distrust between the Irish and African American communities.”
The selected sentence reflects how Irish-American groups moved towards assimilation through loyalty and military service during the Civil War and describe obstacles they faced in competition with African Americans. It illustrates the change over time as the initial resistance to the migrants was on the white Americans’ end, but the Irish got through it. The sentence also pointed out the importance of tensions between the migrants and freed slaves as they were of similar economic status and fought against each other to conquer poverty (Restifo et al., 2019). Over the first half of the nineteenth century, both groups’ lives changed as the Irish assimilated and the African Americans moved closer to slavery abolishment.
The article covers particular actions Irish immigrants took to assimilate into America and the difficulties like the lack of working skills and racism they faced along the way. They did hard jobs for low salaries, served the Union during the Civil War, integrated American traditions and beliefs into their culture, and dealt with negative stereotypes formed about them.
The Irish were able to assimilate into U.S. culture by slowly getting out of poverty, being loyal to the Union during the War, and helping sports like baseball develop. Moreover, the same language and religion eased communication with natives. Millions of newcomers of the same ethnicity supported each other and showed more willingness to work and serve because they had large communities behind them.
I agree with your point that the economic competition between the Irish migrants and African Americans is a crucial factor influencing the formers’ assimilation. The communities had similar values for the country, and riots and protests followed their integration into society. You were right when you highlighted that such an experience as the Draft Riots was necessary for assimilation.
You are wrong when you call the assimilation smooth for the Irish immigrants, as it was a complicated and lengthy process. You did not mention that the negative stereotypes formed about them combined with the lack of industrial labor skills hindered newcomers from getting better jobs and overgrowing poverty. It took more than a century for the large immigrant group to assimilate into the American culture, and they faced many obstacles along the way.
Reference
Restifo, S. J., Roscigno, V. J., & Phillips, L. A. (2019). Racial/ethnic hierarchy and urban labor market inequality: Four poignant historical cases. City & Community, 18(2), 662-688.