Lawrence just said his parents came from Ireland, considered a shithole country...

[Hekate]

8. They came in a wave during the Potato Famine, destitute, illiterate, starved, sick...

The ships were called coffin ships because of the high incidence of typhus aboard. Public health officials at ports in Canada and the US quarantined the ships offshore as a (for real) public health hazard. One of my ancestors started out with her whole family and ended up with just one sister by the time they landed in Canada. They then lied their way across the border into the US.

Illiterate? Mostly. As punisment for Irish obduracy in clinging to Roman Catholicism and refusing to convert to English Protestantism, Irish schools were closed and forbidden.

In the worst assessments, Irish immigrants were considered "apelike" and "incapable of assimilation."

It's a pity all the "white" people in this country don't remember how their ancestors were received when they got here, and practice a whole lotta empathy for newer arrivals.