They did not starve as they would have at home, but there is much evidence that they did not regard themselves as willing immigrants or the US as the American Dream but saw themselves as exiles, having been forced out of their homeland. They blamed the English government and the landlord system; as one woman from Limerick put it, “Due to the suppression of the English, the Irish were practically driven from their homes.” Another said, “We didn’t want to leave Ireland, but we had to.”
