#irish steve

“Look were pissed, but we also want back on the boat. Let us join again.“

And Ed kind of misses these guys, so he’s like “Ok, but not HIM“ pointing at Stede.

So Olu is like “Why can’t Steve join? He’s done nothing wrong?“

And Ed gets all pissed, and is like Stede is the reason we are all here!!!!

Olu: Nah mate, thats Steve, Irish Steve. Doesnt speak a word english, but really good at his job.

Ed looks like hes losing it.

And Roach just joins in: Yeah man, everyone knows Captain Stede’s dead, was in all the newspapers.

Steve Rogers: Welp, goodbye America

As well as having branches of the Nazi party (ie. the German-American Bund), the Brooklyn of Steve’s day also had a big problem of antisemitism amongst the local Irish-Catholic population. 

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Examples: 

There was a Canadian-American Catholic priest and demagogue named Charles Coughlin, who received indirect funding from the Nazi party. Up until 1939 'Father Coughlin’ had both a regular right-wing talkradio programme, and a matching newspaper (ironically called Social Justice), broadcasting pro-fascist, anti-communist, virulently antisemitic diatribes. (He was the inspiration for the character Brother Justin Crowe in the show Carnivale.) 

In New York, Coughlin’s writings prompted the creation of an antisemitic organisation called the Christian Front, which held public rallies on the intersecting corners of Jewish/Irish neighborhoods in Brooklyn, with the specific intention of drumming up conflict. And just as in Nazi Germany, this indoctrination started young: there were Hitler Youth summer camps in both New York and New Jersey. 

In wider pop culture, the most successful broadway play for a long time was Abie’s Irish Rose, a “schmaltzy interfaith romantic comedy" about the conflict between a Jewish family and Irish-Catholic family when a Jewish boy marries an Irish girl (so, that generation’s equivalent of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.) It was so successful that it was mentioned in the lyrics to songs of other broadway shows, spawned a long-running series of tie-in movies, and had its own radio show. 

Similarly, the musical West Side Story was originally titled ‘East Side Story’ and was about a star-crossed Jewish/Irish-Catholic couple in the Lower East Side of Manhattan (where Jack Kirby lived, and Cap too, before he was later moved to Brooklyn. Those other kids Jack Kirby grew up fighting? Probably Irish-Catholic.)  

This is also why, when Jewish writer Norman Lear came to rip off UK sitcom Till Death Us Do Part to make US sitcom All in the Family, in the 1970s, his choice to play the role of the bigoted father -- even though he was inspired by his own, bigoted Jewish father -- was an Irish actor whose face “screams ‘Irish.’ (Lear kept being encouraged to use that and make the character Irish-Catholic in the show, but he refused.) 

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Context:

That rise in Irish-Catholic antisemitism originated with the Fascist conflation of Jews with Bolshevism, and of Communism with the persecution of Christians. 

(All this while Russian-Jewish immigrants to NYC were moving into traditionally Irish-Catholic areas, competing for jobs and housing, and their success was resented.)

This also tied into the Spanish Civil War, when Russian and Communist Front groups in America aided the Loyalist forces instead of the Fascists (the Abraham Lincoln Battalion, for example, was made up of American volunteers who fought for the Loyalists, and was 25% Jewish). 

In New York, the fact that the Communist party membership was mainly Jewish was treated as proof that all Jews were Communist, (and therefore enemies of Catholics), even though the majority of Jews in New York were not Communists. 

In fact, it was more the case that Jews were drawn to what they perceived as progressivism -- grounded in a history of discrimination -- and since they saw Fascism as their chief threat, they were more likely to accept Communists as allies in the fight against it (just as Catholics were more likely to ally with Fascists against Communism). 

Amongst American Catholics there was also distrust of FDR's liberal New Deal policies, regarded as a wave of Communism sweeping the country, since the government’s helping of the poor post-Depression was seen as a deliberate infringement upon what was traditionally the territory of the Catholic Church. (I kid you not.)

And then, since Ireland was a neutral country, the Irish-Catholics in New York were able to continue to espouse such views during the war. Unlike them, the Germans and Italians suddenly became more circumspect (as they had during WWI), for fear of appearing to support America’s enemies, and suffering reprisals as a result.

And all this was not helped by the fact that the Pope shared this view of Communism, and collaborated with Hitler on the Reich Concordat, an authoritarian pact wherein the Vatican vowed to forbid Catholics in Fascist Germany from interfering in politics.

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All of which is to say: 

It’s a BIG DEAL for Steve’s Jewish creators to make Steve Irish-Catholic. 

It means that, on top of being a Nazi’s worst nightmare (disabled, blonde, blue-eyed, turned into a supersoldier and yet still antifa), and fighting Bundists, Silver Shirts and ANP members, as you’d expect, Steve often would've been fighting his own people, as well. 

That takes an even greater strength of character and commitment to left wing ideals. 

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tl;dr: in historical context, Steve being Irish-Catholic is hugely significant. 

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sources: 

https://muse.jhu.edu/book/67077.

https://crimereads.com/forgotten-history-of-the-far-right-pro-nazi-anti-semitic-christian-front/

https://www.jstor.org/stable/25154932

https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2017/06/american-nazis-in-the-1930sthe-german-american-bund/529185/

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/gabrielsanchez/american-hate

https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/bcoppola/2019/01/01/father-coughlin-is-already-explaining-it-to-the-american-people-june-13-1939/

https://twitter.com/TheNormanLear/status/1582494950649757696

https://www.history.com/news/west-side-story-was-originally-about-jews-and-catholics

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/captain-america-getting-real-life-statue-some-say-its-wrong-place-180959706/

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Abie%27s_Irish_Rose

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/The_Cohens_and_Kellys

Follow up to this ask about Steve and Bucky’s extended family from pre-war. 

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In CATFA, Steve said his dad was injured by mustard gas in WWI, but was in the 107th infantry, an American regiment, not an Irish one. 

On the face of it, that means Joseph Rogers must have been in NYC from at least March 1917, possibly as late as Oct 1917 (since America only joined WWI in April 1917, but didn't deploy until 20 November). 

(In order to be eligible to join the US Army, he would have to register with the Selective Service System within 30 days of arriving in the United States, have been resident in the US for at least a year, be eligible based on age and other requirements, and as a resident alien he would need to have already declared his intent to become a US citizen.)

However, if it’s not true that Joseph was in the 107 (and Steve was just saying that because he thought it would make the recruiter put him in Bucky’s Regiment) ...then that means either:

a) Joseph was in some other American Regiment, not the 107th, having emigrated to America already.

b) if he hadn’t emigrated to America before his war service, then he would had to have enlisted into a British Regiment to serve as an Irishman, rather than as an American.

( Despite Britain’s attempt to pass a law that extended conscription to Ireland, this draft was never enforced due to understandably ill feeling towards Britain in Ireland. So enlistment is the only way a non-Amerian Joseph could’ve served. He would’ve been one of 200K Irish to serve in British Regiments. 

This would’ve made him unpopular with other Irish-Catholics back home, given the Irish nationalist / anti-British climate and the fact that some Irish-manned British regiments were deployed against Irish rebels during the Easter Uprising of 1916. It doesn’t seem very Rogers-y of him, although he might have been fighting for Britain in the belief that it would lead to Home Rule after the war.

Although you could also have a scenario where Joseph himself was part of the Easter Uprising in 1916, never served in any British regiment, and emigrated to America to avoid British reprisals! )

Option A) would mean Joseph was in America from 1917 at latest and missed out on the Irish War of Independence back home.

In any case, Joseph and Sarah would’ve known from April 1917 that the 107  / US regiments were going to be deployed. 

As said, if you believe the DOB for Steve is July 4 1918, then we know Joseph and Sarah must've been in the same place on Oct 7, 1917. 

(Or a little later, if Steve was born premature, which is another possibility. Unless Steve’s real DOB is something else in 1918. But which months it could’ve been are severely limited by the dates of Joseph’s potential deployments.) 

Which puts the date of Steve's ‘official’ conception right before Joseph could conceivably have first been deployed (Nov 1917). 

That to me suggests a certain urgency. 

If Sarah wasn’t already with Joseph in NYC by then, she definitely emigrated at the very latest in October 1917 in order to conceive Steve then.

Imagine Steve having to try and take a US citizenship test in order to get officially naturalised?? like imagine the poor examiner who has to try and make Captain America prove he's American enough?? (they'd probably have an aneurysm) 

Or imagine the uproar if someone accused him of not upholding American values and he's just like 'yeah no shit sherlock I uphold Irish-American values" or if he was like 'hey can I get dual citizenship that sounds like it'd be neat' imagine the US gov shitting its pants after trying to threaten him if he acts up and he's just like 'fine if you need me I'll be drinking guinness in the other country I could be a supersoldier for.'