For a few hours yesterday and today our communities celebrated a minority culture. "Erin go Bragh" means "Ireland forever," and the 18 percent of us in the United States who claim Irish ancestry can use St. Patrick's Day as an excuse to be a bit nostalgic. Even the non-Irish among us will join in the "wearin' o' the green" and for a day become part of 41 million people in the United States with Irish roots.
Irish-Americans are only exceeded by the 21 percent who claim German heritage and 22 percent who claim English ancestors.In spite of this heritage, and the fact that the troubles of Ireland are very much in the news again, many in the United States seem geographically and culturally illiterate about the Emerald Isle.
Just for the record:
1. The Republic of Ireland is not governed by England.
2. The Republic is independent of Northern Ireland.
3. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is not the army of the Republic. It is an illegal urban guerilla organization.
4. People are safer on the streets of Belfast than in Denver, Colo.
A recent population study of Utah shows that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints claims about 75 percent of the population of the state. The percent of LDS in many rural communities of the state approaches 95 percent. Irish data indicate that the Republic of Ireland is 95 percent Catholic.
This data immediately suggests an analogy. Here is an opportunity to compare two cultures and school systems influenced by a predominant Christian religion. The Baker children were minority students for a year in the Dublin schools.
We have lived mostly in Utah as a members of the predominant culture without sensing the frustrations and the problems that we benignly impose on members of minority religious cultures. It was 1984-5 that we lived in the Republic of Ireland while working on a research project for Dublin City University and for the European Economic Community (EEC). We lived there again for a few months in 1994. In Ireland I was the minority.
It was school time for my kids in Ireland. We purchased books and uniforms and were ready for Day 1. I was only mildly nervous about the fact that a nun would be teacher for one of my children. It never occurred to me that many LDS leaders in Utah are teachers in the public schools and that some Utah families may be as nervous as I was in Ireland. A parent who discovers that the teacher is a LDS bishop could be as nervous as the Baker kids when they discovered they were to be taught by a nun. Adding to the nervous feeling was the fact that none of my children had ever seen a nun before in Utah.
What time are new students to be at the school to register? We called and visited the school frequently trying to discover the answer to this simple question but couldn't ever seem to make connections with someone who knew the answer.
The first day came so we guessed at the time and took the kids to the school and found ourselves in a queue of parents with other children new to the school. I asked the woman ahead of me how she knew what time to come to the school for registration. The answer jarred me because it was an echo of an answer that could have been given in any Utah community with no sense that it excluded anyone.
"It's been announced in church for the last three weeks."
The point is that it wasn't announced in my church. Apparently it was announced in the church that implicitly sets the curriculum, governs the school through legal process, and imposes itself on a somewhat powerless and passive minority. It was announced in the parish church. What else is necessary?
In Utah and Ireland neither majority seems malicious to me. The majority establishment sees itself as in control but benevolent. The majority seems to be trying to accommodate and help, but is often insensitive.
In Ireland the preparations for confirmation, the prayer in Irish each morning, the opportunity to celebrate mass as a school class, the class time used for confession and discussions with a priest, and the celebration of Ash Wednesday, all illustrate the closeness of the education and church institutions. Even though the church is extended into the Irish school, teachers were sensitive to the Baker children. One gave our son a candy bar when the rest of the class received religious awards in this public school.
Despite this self-concept of the majority - that they are accommodating and benevolent - is a theology that may contradict. The theology in Ireland and Utah claims that the majority is True and therefore right. The theology in both instances teaches the importance of conversion, and in both cultures missionaries and members of religious orders zealously try to convert others to the truth throughout the world.
Since this year in Ireland as a minority, I wonder each time I hear a public LDS prayer if perhaps someone I don't wish to offend is uncomfortable and feels excluded. Is the prayer somehow, to a devout minority, a symbol that the majority is very much in charge?
Perhaps St. Patrick's Day is a time when we can celebrate with a minority group in others ways than by marching in parades. Maybe it and other holidays that celebrate minorities can remind us that minorities need sensitivity more than annual celebration.