Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity,
by Samuel P. Huntington. Reviewed by Peter Skerry

At one point in Who Are We?, Samuel Huntington relates a little-known episode of the Mexican War, in which Irish immigrant soldiers deserted the American army to serve with their fellow Catholics in what became known as the San Patricio Battalion of the Mexican Army. He then notes that several years later, many other Irish immigrants served honorably in the Union armies and thereby "sounded the death knell for organized anti-Irish Know-Nothing nativism."

This is vintage Huntington. Ever alert to context and the fragility of social order, he highlights conflicting immigrant loyalties in the midst of war. And while he notes that many Mexican- and Muslim- immigrants are serving with distinction in Iraq, he is not convinced that such a limited war will afford them the same opportunity to prove their loyalty to the United States as World War II did for earlier immigrants.

I wonder how Huntington would react to my experience interviewing Mexican-American political elites during the 1980s, when I heard frequent mention of the San Patricios. Typically when my interviewee asked about my ethnic background and heard it was Irish Catholic, he (rarely she) would slap me on the back, order another beer, and, and tell me how much the Irish and the Mexicans have in common. At first, I was so grateful to establish a connection that I only gradually realized that we were celebrating traitors to the United States! Yet I never doubted the loyalty or patriotism of my interviewee, many of whom were World War II or Vietnam vets. Mostly, their telling of the San Patricios story seemed like working-class, anti-establishment bragadocio.  ... 

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Samuel P. Huntington: Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity,
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004. 448 pp.