Irish Orphans Adopted By Mexican Families

[one...two...tree 2,762]

My Dad was telling me an interesting story about Irish immigrant children in New York. The immigrants were so poor, they'd leave their children out in the streets. Then eventually many of them were sent to the Midwest to be adopted and were called the boxcar children. They were regarded by the locals as ne'er-do-wellers on the streets of New York. My father's family lived on the Arizona/Mexico border and some of the orphans arrived in their town. The nuns and priests proceeded to place them into loving Mexican homes until some of the Anglo women of the town took notice of these light skinned, blue-eyed children going to brown skinned families. Within days, there was a big standoff with local townsmen pointing their guns at the priests and nuns demanding they take the white children back and place them in white homes. The Church fought it all the way to the Supreme Court, but lost. This happened around 1903.

[pedroh 21]

mhh.. guinness and some enchiladas..

that's sad.. but oh well.. people were kinda stupid back then

Edited February 21, 2007 by pedroh

[one...two...tree 2,762]

mhh.. guinness and some enchiladas..

that's sad.. but oh well.. people were kinda stupid back then

My Dad's got a bunch of stories from those times - he's writing it all down in hopes to make it into a book.

Another story. His father worked as a border patrolman on horseback (1920's). The city they lived in had a twin city just on the other side of this barb-wired fence that separated the two countries. There were hostilities at times from both sides, and every once in awhile someone from the other side would shoot a gun towards the other side. One day a Mexican woman was walking and was struck by a stray bullet right in her keister. She was wailing in pain and my grandfather had to help remove the bullet (no hospital nearby). He ended up fainting when the doc started to remove the bullet.

[Welshcookie 17]

I remember a friend of mine whose family fostered a black baby in the mid 80's , never adopted her , when she was 13 years old social services turned up and took her away to find a black family to rehome her with.....she died a few months later while in the children's home in some freak accident.

Sometimes years don't take away stupidness.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

I remember a friend of mine whose family fostered a black baby in the mid 80's , never adopted her , when she was 13 years old social services turned up and took her away to find a black family to rehome her with.....she died a few months later while in the children's home in some freak accident.

Sometimes years don't take away stupidness.

Yep...sigh.