A long journey into “night” - the Irish American author Jennings Michael Burch that still strikes a chord today

Jennings Michael Burch

Sometimes, the students are the ones who teach the teachers.

High school students all across New York City spent last week taking their all-important Regents exams is subjects like algebra, global history and English language arts.

As readers of this column may know, I’m a high school teacher in Brooklyn.  And  so my job last week was to grade literally hundreds of those English language  arts Regents exams.

One part of the exam asks students to read a quotation by a famous person and write an essay about two works of literature related to that quote. And so, not surprisingly, I read essay after essay in which students discussed The Catcher in the Rye, The Scarlet Letter, The Crucible and many other staples of American literature.

But, this year, one title came up on numerous student essays that I’d never heard of.  The book was called They Cage the Animals at Night and, as the students were describing it, the book was about a boy with a series of family problems who ended up in numerous foster homes, some of which were run by the Catholic Church. 

Some of the nuns the boy came across were nice.  Others were not.

A little bit of research introduced me Jennings Michael Burch, the author of They Cage the Animals at Night.  Burch’s childhood, in many ways, was very typical for Irish Americans at the time. 

He was born in New York City in the late 1940s.  His father was named Francis and his mother was named Rita (nee Hogan).  The family moved around, from Queens to Manhattan to the Bronx. 

Burch himself would go on to become a police officer and raise four daughters of his own. But there were things about his youth that were far from typical.  Overall there were five Burch children, and at some point Rita simply became overwhelmed. Jennings entered the foster care system, eventually staying in over 30 different foster homes. 

Thus began an odyssey that very few children could endure.  Burch faced mental and physical abuse. He was temporarily placed with families that were, at best, uncaring and, at worst, criminal. 

Burch’s book manages to vividly convey not only the ordinary traumas of childhood, but the extraordinary challenges he had to overcome to survive. 

They Cage the Animals at Night has drawn comparisons to the trilogy of books (which students devour) about abuse by Dave Pelzer, as well as Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes.

It was satisfying to learn about Burch, his life and his book. There is something to be said here that is possibly corny, but still noble about the power of reading. 

Jennings Michael Burch created a harrowing story about a time and place that many high school students in the year 2013 might not otherwise care about.  And for all of the difficulties he faced, it was another Irish American family, the Dailys, who were finally able to show Jennings the love and guidance he needed.

Then I learned -- you can’t make this stuff up -- Michael Jackson, of all people, had been planning to make a movie based on They Cage the Animals at Night when the famed singer died in 2009. Jackson said he related to Burch’s story. "Michael told me often he felt like he grew up as an orphan, like a foster kid, because he never was in one home," producer, writer and director Bryan Michael Stoller told Reuters a few years back.

"To him every hotel was like a different foster home. He said he used to sit in the window and see kids playing outside and cry because he couldn't be part of that."

Not many 70-somethings can say they managed to emotionally move Brooklyn 17 year-olds as well as the King of Pop. Then I learned one more important thing.

Jennings Michael Burch died earlier this month at the age of 71. He had been battling cancer for some time. 

There was no obituary in The New York Times.  Just a notice in the Putnam County Courier, published in upstate New York, where Burch called home for the final 20 years of his life.

They Cage the Animals at Night may never come out as a movie.  Burch had been working on a sequel, but it’s not clear if he ever finished it.

One thing is clear.  Many of us worry if we leave a legacy on this planet.  Jennings Michael Burch had no such worries. 

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tdeignan.blogspot.com or tomdeignan@earthlink.net.)

The conspiracy theory that won’t go away - Robert F Kennedy and the secrets behind the assassination of JFK

Robert F. Kennedy Jr

Early in Oliver Stone’s hyper-paranoid film JFK, Guy Bannister (played by Ed Asner) grumbles that he hates the fact that, by 1963, African Americans could  more or less vote safely.  He adds, “[Blacks] get together with the Jews and the  Catholics and elect an Irish bleeding heart.”

According to the film, Bannister -- and a whole bunch of other people -- did  something to stop that “Irish bleeding heart.” 

Bannister and the mob and the CIA and Lyndon Johnson and perhaps even Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

The Warren Commission later argued that Oswald, in fact, acted alone. But most Americans remain skeptical of the Warren Report.

Bobby Kennedy Jr., it turns out, is one of them.  Earlier this month, JFK’s nephew, as well as his niece, Rory, sat down for an interview in Dallas.

Eventually, Bobby Kennedy’s two children were asked about the conspiracy theories swirling around JFK’s murder. “The evidence at this point I think is very, very convincing that it was not a lone gunman,” RFK Jr. said, though he didn’t elaborate much beyond that. 

He did add that his father, who himself was assassinated in June of 1968, also believed their was another killer aside from Oswald. According to RFK Jr., his father considered the Warren Commission report “shoddy.”

RFK Jr. added, “He publicly supported the Warren Commission report but  privately he was dismissive of it."

RFK Jr. also suggested that the most likely co-conspirators were mafia leaders who were targeted by JFK’s attorney general -- who was none other than Bobby Kennedy Sr.

To quote another famous mafia figure, “Every time I think I’m out...they pull me  back in!”

Things have been quiet on the JFK conspiracy front.  And then, RFK Jr. went and made his comments. 

And then, a few days later, an apartment in Dallas which Oswald called home in 1962 and 1963 was torn down, briefly resurrecting interest in Oswald’s bizarre life prior to being thrust onto the world stage.

And so we have, arguably, the most compelling defender yet of a conspiracy  theory to kill JFK -- his own martyred brother and his crusading son. 

It means nothing to me.  For years I waded into the muck and mire of the JFK conspiracy underworld and emerged unconvinced. 

Yes, there is a lot of evidence to suggest others were involved in the Kennedy killing.  Yes, the Warren report is flawed. 

But I also discovered that most people who buy into the JFK conspiracy do so not only based on facts, but also on something that can only be described as vaguely  religious.

You also see this from those who buy into conspiracies surrounding another  tragedy which hit Irish America hard -- the 9/11 attacks.  Part of the allure of  conspiracy theories surrounding both 9/11 and JFK is that they explain the seemingly unexplainable.  

How could one Marxist loser end Camelot?  How could 20 fanatics with a few hours of flying lessons murder 3,000 people? No, it must have been something larger.

But have you ever noticed that people don’t talk much about conspiracy theories when it comes to plots that more or less failed?

In December of 1960, a man named Richard Pavlick packed his car with dynamite and was going to ram the vehicle into a Kennedy home in Florida.  He chickened out and was arrested. 

Had he succeeded, perhaps great energy would have gone into uncovering a broader conspiracy. Instead, the truth was fairly easy to swallow.  The guy was an anti-Catholic nut who hated JFK.

And why so few conspiracy theories about the 1993 effort to topple the World Trade Center?  Why do theories about rogue government elements, and, yes, even Israel and the Jews, flourish only around the 2001 attack that actually brought the towers down?

It is generally futile to go detail for detail with conspiracy theorists.  They are dogged in their shaping of facts which support their view, and, like the  religiously faithful, defend their organization of those facts. 

As for me, once I read Gerald Posner’s book Case Closed, I was able to accept the fact that Oswald acted alone.

The odd thing in all of this is why RFK Jr. was not asked if he believes Sirhan Sirhan acted alone when he killed Bobby Kennedy in Los Angeles in 1968?  Why not ask that question?

Must be a conspiracy.

(Contact Sidewalks at tdeignan.blogspot.com or tomdeignan@earthlink.net)

'Gangster Squad', Whitey Bulger, the Westies and more - It’s prime time for Irish crime - VIDEO

Josh Brolin stars as John O'Mara in 'Gangster Squad'

Gangster Squad is currently filling movie theaters across the nation with the rat-tat-tat sound of Tommy guns firing off endless rounds.  The film stars Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, as well as Josh Brolin, who plays an Irish American cop named John O’Mara.

But as several recent crime cases indicate, Irish Americans are still very much  on the wrong side of the law as well.

The case against Irish Godfather Whitey Bulger, for example, drags on.  The  senior citizen mobster, this week, argued that he could not get a fair trial with the current judge presiding over the case. 

Bulger -- who himself is  expected to be the subject of a forthcoming Hollywood flick directed by newly minted Golden Globe winner Ben Affleck -- is arguing that the judge’s prior experience  prosecuting Boston criminals creates the appearance of a conflict.

God knows how you could find anyone in Boston law enforcement who did not, at one point, have some sort of involvement in the massive, decades-long hunt to nab Bulger.  One gets the feeling that Bulger will be sentenced to a  hole six-feet in the ground well before he is ever officially sentenced to a  prison cell.

Meanwhile, late last year, federal law enforcement officials announced the arrest of an Irish American member of the Westies street gang, accused of extortion in a case that also involved a shootout. 

Read more: Irish American mob lawyer Gerald McMahon targets “rats” as he calls informers

New Jersey resident Daniel Hanley -- identified by the feds as a member of the long-standing West Side Irish  gang the Westies -- has been accused of teaming up with members of the Gambino crime family and an offshoot of the Hell’s Angel motorcycle gang to run a violent loan sharking operation.

“With alleged involvement of the Gambinos, Westies and Hell’s Angels, this case hit the trifecta of loan sharking and extortion,” New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly commented.

But by the far the most intriguing Irish American criminal in the news these  days is Anthony “Tony O” O’Donnell. 

O’Donnell has been identified as a long-time associate of the Gambino crime family and has faced a slew of charges  related to various shakedowns in the construction industry.

Back in 2000, O’Donnell, as well as Finbar O’Neill and other Irish Americans, were named in an indictment by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau following a three year investigation.

Meanwhile, at a January 2011 press conference, Justice Department officials  outlined O’Donnell’s long career in the New York-New Jersey underworld.

O’Donnell “served as the right hand man to Edward Garafola, a Gambino soldier  who was a member of the Gambino family’s ‘construction panel,’” a Justice  Department report noted, before outlining a host of complex shakedown schemes the Gambino expert “panel” oversaw.

In 1993, O’Donnell was arrested and charged with participating in the armed robbery of a UPS truck moving goods from New York to New Jersey.  In 2008, he also plead guilty to what the Justice Department termed “extortion conspiracy.”

Read more: Like Big Tobacco, the Big Guns of the NRA are about to fade

In his latest round of legal woes, O’Donnell has been accused of shaking down a Midtown Manhattan real estate investment firm.  In an effort to polish his image before sentencing, O’Donnell submitted chummy letters from political heavyweights including New York Senator Chuck Schumer, former president Bill Clinton and even current one Barack Obama.

Trouble is, the correspondence between these bold-faced politicos and O’Donnell was hardly personal.  Many of the documents were form letters sent out in mass mailings to constituents, supporters, donors or others.

Either way, O’Donnell’s shakedown shenanigans, Whitey Bulger’s stall tactics and the return of the old-school Westies goes to show that America’s real-life “Gangster Squad” still had a decidedly green tint -- for better or worse. 

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tdeignan.blogspot.com or tomdeignan@earthlink.net)

What now for the Catholic Church? Obama’s reelection and schools among questions that need to be answered

Cardinal Timothy Dolan

When the Academy Award nominations are announced on January 10, Mea Maxima Culpa may or may not be one of the five films up for Best Documentary.

The film, about the sexual abuse horrors Wisconsin’s Reverend Lawrence Murphy is accused of, was on a shortlist of 15 top documentaries back in December.

Either way, the film directed by Alex Gibney has already made a troubling case not only against Murphy, but the Vatican as well.

With the New Year upon us, and a grueling election which grappled with tough religious questions behind us, it is probably time to ask -- what is the future of the Catholic Church in America?

Given the revelations in Mea Maxima Culpa, given the election results and the ongoing restructuring of Catholic schools across the U.S., it is surprising fewer people have not raised this question.

After President Obama’s reelection, for example, most commentators argued that it was time for the Republican Party to take a long look in the mirror.

But what about the church and the election? New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan was on the offensive much of the electoral season, denouncing the Obama administration on several fronts.

Read more: New York Times surprised over Cardinal Dolan's support for beatification of Dorothy Day

Irish Catholic pundits such as Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity, meanwhile, suggested the election was nothing short of a referendum on religious freedom.  A vote for Obama, many argued, was a vote against the Catholic Church.

Yet according to most polling data, Catholics supported Obama by a slim majority. (Though it appears that Irish and other white Catholics supported Mitt Romney.)

Either way, given the lengths vocal church leaders went to steer Catholics away from Obama -- Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria likened the Obama administration to those who mocked Jesus -- these numbers do not bode well.

And while it is tempting to say the church is engaged in spiritual rather than political matters, to pretend the church is an apolitical institution is to simply ignore reality.

But politics is only part of what church leaders need to be thinking about.

The true cost of the damage inflicted by the sex abuse scandal.  The purpose -- and  price -- of Catholic education. The dwindling number of priests.

The future of the church hinges on these and other messy, weighty questions.

Irish American scholar Patrick J. McCloskey offered some interesting thoughts this Monday in The New York Times. “Catholic parochial education is in crisis,” McCloskey, and his co-author Joseph Claude Harris, declared in an op-ed piece entitled “Catholic Education, In Need of Salvation.”

They note that Catholic schools have long played a key role for the Irish and other immigrants in America, but are no longer playing that role.

One reason?  Tuition has risen sharply, though not because church revenues have fallen off.

“Despite the sex-abuse scandals and two recessions, church revenue...grew to $11.9 billion in 2010, an inflation-adjusted increase of $2.2 billion from a  decade earlier,” they write.

“Yet educational subsidies have fallen; the church now pays at least 12.6 percent of parochial elementary school costs, down from  63 percent in 1965.”

One possible solution?  Given the falling numbers of priests, McCloskey suggests deacons be given more power.  This, however, would in all likelihood eventually  lead to a “married priesthood.”

“Celibacy should be a sacrifice offered freely, not an excuse for institutional  suicide,” McCloskey writes.

Good luck convincing Pope Benedict -- or, for that matter, Sean Hannity -- of that. But it’s pretty clear something has got to give.

Read more: Cardinal Dolan congratulates Bishop Dennis Sullivan on appointment as bishop of Camden

Something spiritual, yes, but also financial, educational and cultural.  It’s tempting to say it’s time for another Vatican Council, like those meetings held between 1962 and 1965, to take up these profound questions.

Rather than sit and wait for that, perhaps the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops need to confront this moment head on and hold some sort of council of their own. 

If for no other reason, then to shed light on the many good things the church still does. For all of its flaws, we would be a poorer nation without a vibrant, relevant Catholic Church. 

Right now, that does not seem to be what the future holds.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tdeignan.blogspot.com or tomdeignan@earthlink.net.)

Prediction for the New Year - what the world can expect from the Republicans, Catholic Church and more in 2013

Rick Santorum

It's that time of year again.  Assuming all those folks were actually wrong about that Mayan end-of-the-world thing, a new year is upon us.

Let’s gaze into our crystal ball and see what 2013 might have in store for the Irish in America.

First off, we can expect the Republican Party to make some changes. We’ve already seen them make some overtures towards immigrants, in the hopes that their party won’t soon become - you know - extinct. So why not expect more in that direction? 

Next year, the Republican Party will move to banish the constitutional requirement that the president actually be born in the U.S.  (In their minds that was already broken by Barack Obama, right?)  The GOP will then look to nominate an undocumented immigrant for the White House in 2016.

If that seems far-fetched, keep in mind that some people right now actually believe that Republicans will give in when it comes to the gun nuts in this country.

Speaking of institutions facing extinction, what’s in store for the American Catholic Church in 2013? 

First, we can expect the hierarchy to get it over with and excommunicate every pesky nun currently serving in the U.S.  Those ladies have already caused far too much trouble with their yapping about following the example set by Jesus when it comes to love and tolerance. 

Odd how the nuns have also managed to avoid becoming embroiled in, like, even one single sex abuse case.

Rick Santorum, meanwhile, having failed to ride his impeccable Catholic cred to the White House, will announce his candidacy for Pope.  When Santorum hears papal policy regarding the impoverished and oppressed of the world, however, he will announce he is instead running for Pope of America.

No one opposes - or cares.

Finally, the church will stop announcing which Catholic schools are closing.  For simplicity’s sake, they will simply announce which schools will actually remain open.

In the world of showbiz, expect big things from legendary Boston Irish criminal Whitey Bulger in 2013.  Sure he’s disgraced and imprisoned now. 

But with movie stars like Matt Damon and Ben Affleck angling to make a movie about Bulger’s rise and fall, expect authorities to give the old guy a break so that he can serve as a “consultant” on the upcoming film.  (“What’s the guy ever done to prove we can’t trust him?” one FBI official will ask.)
Shockingly, after one day on the set, Bulger will disappear.  In the months that follow there will be
Whitey Bulger sightings from Denver to Dublin.

Ben Affleck, feeling guilty, will then attempt to shoot a fake movie, in the hopes of luring Bulger out of hiding.  It will be called Where Did Whitey Argo?

We couldn’t possibly go a whole column without mentioning Irish boy toy Niall Horan and the rest of the boys in One Direction.  Horan will shock the world in 2013 by calling a press conference and declaring: “Having just spent the last three months counting all of my money, I have decided to retire.  I don’t know what world these British twits are looking at, but in the world I come from these boy bands don’t last very long."

“Boyzone anybody?  Exactly!  I’m getting out of this now, before I start looking like a real weirdo.  I’ll be back when my fans all have children of their own and they have some real money to spend.”

Ex boy-bander Mark Wahlberg will then call up Horan to see if he is interested in playing a child role in the latest installment of the “Irish” Mickey Ward series of boxing films. The title? The Fighter 4: The Son Also Rises.

Also in 2013, Liam Neeson may actually pass on a movie role.  And Daniel Day-Lewis, having wowed audiences as Lincoln, grows pork-chop sideburns to play seventh President Andrew Jackson, whose parents were born Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim.

The expletive-laden script (written by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh) explores Jackson’s bloody rise to power. However, violence breaks out on the set when the notoriously-intense Day-Lewis refuses to break character.  McDonagh becomes frustrated when Day-Lewis requests a particularly ornate horse and buggy carriage to carry him to and from the set.

“It’s f***ing 2013 you weirdo!” McDonagh howls before socking Day-Lewis.

Happy New Year!

Contact “Sidewalks” at tdeignan.blogspot.com or tomdeignan@earthlink.net.

The PJ Clarke’s Irish connection - ‘Tales from New York City’s Famous Saloon’

Helen Marie Clarke

From McSorley’s to the Lion’s Head, there is no shortage of classic New York bars with intimate Irish connections.

P.J. Clarke’s, at 3rd Avenue and 55th Street, is right up there with the best of them.

For well over a century, the squat brick pub and restaurant has welcomed both celebrities and the working class.  Legendary Irish actor Richard Harris loved to quip that when he went to P.J. Clarke’s, he asked for “the usual.” Vinny the barman promptly lined up six double vodkas.

Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Kennedy and countless other bold-faced names all had a soft spot for P.J. Clarke’s.  Given the celebrity pedigree of the joint, it may come as a surprise that P.J. Clarke’s was purchased exactly 100 years ago this year by a humble immigrant from Cloonlaughil, Co. Leitrim named Patrick Joseph Clarke.

The history of this acclaimed pub - from its famous patrons to the lesser-known but no-less-fascinating family behind the bar - is the subject of a new book entitled Over P.J. Clarke’s Bar: Tales from New York City’s Famous Saloon by Helen Marie Clarke, whose grandfather was Patrick Joseph Clarke’s brother.

How intimately did Helen’s family know P.J. Clarke’s?  Her father - and his five brothers - grew up in the flat over the bar.

P.J. Clarkes

“Going there as a kid really made an impression on me,” Helen told the Irish Voice this week. 
The bar, meanwhile, has been making an impression on New Yorkers for generations.  Aside from its glitzy clientele, P.J. Clarke’s has been the bar to turn to for famous filmmakers. 

P.J. Clarke’s is one of the stars of Billy Wilder’s classic tale of alcoholism, The Lost Weekend. Popeye Doyle, in French Connection II, orders one of the bar’s famous burgers, and iconic New York Irish journalist Pete Hamill sits down with Al Pacino in P.J.’s in the whistleblower flick The Insider.

But for Helen Marie Clarke, the story of P.J.’s is decidedly more personal.

She recalls a moment as a young girl, walking through the bar with her granduncle Paddy, and looking at the portraits on the wall.  Hanging near the Irish Tricolor, Uncle Paddy noted, were portraits of Irish revolutionaries Robert Emmet and Michael Collins.

Young Helen knew the bearded fellow, Abraham Lincoln, though she did have some questions about the document which blared the headline “Poblacht Na H Eireann.”

Indeed, part of telling the story of her family’s famous bar was exploring the darker side of her family’s deep Irish roots.

“My grandfather wouldn’t talk about Ireland,” Clarke says. 

She came to see that the immigrant generation in her family was reluctant to talk about the past.
Helen chalks this up to the economic hardships they endured in the late 19th century, as well as anger over what the British had done to her family’s ancestral home.

“I wish he would have talked about the bar more,” Helen says, when asked about her Uncle Paddy. 

To write her book, Helen relied heavily on the recollections of her father and her Uncle Joe.

Despite the portraits of Irish revolutionaries and the Irish Republic Proclamation, Clarke didn’t grow up with a particularly strong sense of her Irish roots.  This even though her family lived a very typical New York Irish  life. 

Her own father, John, was a New York City Police officer who, after living above the bar, lived with his family in the Irish stronghold of Woodside, Queens.

Still, not until Helen visited Ireland in 1970 with her husband did she begin to appreciate the importance of her family’s Irish roots.

She met Irish relatives members while visiting in 1970 and returned in 1989, and to this day stays in touch with cousins from Dublin.  In fact, an Irish book editor named Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin helped make Clarke’s book a reality.

“She’s like a sister to me,” says Clarke, whose agent, Paul Feldstein, is based in Belfast.

Clarke, who now lives and teaches in New Mexico, is also working on a novel about the life of famed Irish revolutionary Constance Markiewicz, and is also hoping to publish a second memoir.

For now, she is enjoying the feeling of holding her book about P.J. Clarke’s which, for many readers, is a chronicle of a legendary New York watering hole.

For Helen, however, it is a prized family record of a distinguished Irish American clan.

“I can’t believe it,” she says.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tdeignan.blogspot.com or tomdeignan@earthlink.net)

Immigration advice for Republicans - post election talk of reform seems superficial and desperate

Senator Linsdey Graham

Well, Republicans, here’s the bad news. Your attempts to suddenly seem immigrant-friendly are awkward at best, and - to put it more bluntly - seem hypocritical, superficial and desperate.
 
On the other hand, there is good news. There is no reason to believe Mitt Romney’s loss to Barack Obama truly represents some kind of final nail in the coffin of the Republican Party. Republicans might actually look at immigration someday as something that benefits them.
 
All you have to do is look at Irish American history.
 
Last week, Republican lawmakers were suddenly busy working to reform America’s immigration policies. That’s not to suggest Republicans have been ignoring immigration.
 
Quite the contrary, as prominent members of the Republican Party have made names for themselves by suggesting that America would be better off sealing up its borders, building walls, or otherwise parroting anti-immigrant nativists from the 19th century.
 
Well, now, Republicans in the House of Representatives have gone and passed a bill which would lure highly educated immigrants to the U.S. GOP members of the Senate, meanwhile, have come up with their own version of the so-called Dream Act, which would help younger immigrants work legally in the U.S.
 
There’s no secret to why Republicans are suddenly embracing immigrants. They see their party going in one direction, and America going in the other direction.
 
Speaking on the TV news show Face the Nation, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham said, 
“[Hispanics are] the fastest-growing demographic in the country, and we're losing votes every election cycle. And it has to stop. It's one thing to shoot yourself in the foot. Just don't reload the gun.”
 
He added, “I intend to tear this wall down and pass an immigration reform bill that's an American solution to an American problem.”

Read more news on Irish immigration issues here
 
Here’s the problem. This is not exactly the way to sway large numbers of Hispanic Americans to vote Republican. That’s because Hispanic voters - like all voters - walk into the voting booth caring about many issues, rather than just one.
 
The biggest problem the Republican Party is facing is not Hispanic voters, but instead where they live.
 
The Republicans continue to get absolutely trounced in urban areas. You know why? Because their policies are profoundly anti-urban.
 
Like it or not, government services - funded by dreaded taxes - play a very important role in the lives of city residents. They understand that without taxes there are no schools for their children, no cops for their streets and no buses or subways to move them around. The Republican obsession with anti-tax, anti-government rhetoric is profoundly out of touch with urban voters.
 
Given his infamous comments about the freeloading 47 percent, the amazing thing about Romney is that he did as well as he actually did in the election.
 
But now there is a feeling among Republicans that if they simply don’t seem quite so hostile on immigration, Hispanics may start voting for them.
 
It is understandable why some Republicans believe Hispanics should be voting for the GOP in greater numbers. They have deep religious and entrepreneurial traditions in America.
 
And yet, shockingly, the GOP’s obsession with abortion and lower taxes for the wealthy has yet to resonate with Mexicans and Dominicans and Puerto Ricans living in and around America’s great cities.
 
Indeed, other than moderating its overall message, if the GOP wants to succeed with these voters, there best tactic may well be to do nothing at all.
 
After all, ethnic Americans living in and around American cities from the 1930s to the 1960 rarely voted for Republicans. Few ever thought they would see the day when large numbers of Irish Catholics voted for Republicans.
 
But once they assimilated more deeply into the American mainstream middle class, they were willing to vote for the likes of Richard Nixon, and, of course, Ronald Reagan. It didn’t hurt that the latter was one of their own.
 
As the saying goes, some Irish Americans turned conservative once they had something to conserve.
 
So, Republicans, the good news is you do have a shot at the Hispanic vote.
 
The bad news? You may have to wait another 30 years or so.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tdeignan.blogspot.com or tomdeignan@earthlink.net)