Oh:
During more than five years as a housekeeper at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., Victorina Morales has made Donald J. Trump’s bed, cleaned his toilet and dusted his crystal golf trophies. When he visited as president, she was directed to wear a pin in the shape of the American flag adorned with a Secret Service logo.
Because of the “outstanding” support she has provided during Mr. Trump’s visits, Ms. Morales in July was given a certificate from the White House Communications Agency inscribed with her name.
Quite an achievement for an undocumented immigrant housekeeper.
Ms. Morales’s journey from cultivating corn in rural Guatemala to fluffing pillows at an exclusive golf resort took her from the southwest border, where she said she crossed illegally in 1999, to the horse country of New Jersey, where she was hired at the Trump property in 2013 with documents she said were phony.
She said she was not the only worker at the club who was in the country illegally.
Sandra Diaz, 46, a native of Costa Rica who is now a legal resident of the United States, said she, too, was undocumented when she worked at Bedminster between 2010 and 2013. The two women said they worked for years as part of a group of housekeeping, maintenance and landscaping employees at the golf club that included a number of undocumented workers, though they could not say precisely how many. There is no evidence that Mr. Trump or Trump Organization executives knew of their immigration status. But at least two supervisors at the club were aware of it, the women said, and took steps to help workers evade detection and keep their jobs.
“There are many people without papers,” said Ms. Diaz, who said she witnessed several people being hired whom she knew to be undocumented.
This is the most infuriating thing about the demonization of immigrants by Republicans- they all know immigrants, and on a one on one basis, love them, pay them, etc. But they still feel free to whip up the racists and nativists because it helps them politically.
Patricia Kayden
Isn’t this how bigotry often works? Strom Thurmond fathered an out of wedlock child with a Black maid and apparently took care of that child and even visited her while she was attending an all-Black college. Yet, he filibustered the Civil Rights Act and was a staunch segregationist. Bigots don’t have to be logical.
schrodingers_cat
.
No, they don’t love immigrants (or black people or any other minority), they tolerate them as long as they know their place. Think Clint Eastwood talking to that fucking chair at the RNC.
Mnemosyne
Demonizing illegal workers is part of the plan — it means that the illegal workers who are already here can be readily exploited, because if they step out of line, employers like Trump can just have them arrested and deported. Being able to deport workers who inconveniently get injured or sick or start asking for more pay is a feature of their anti-immigrant agenda, not a bug.
TenguPhule
By leaving the cash on the bedside table.
mapaghimagsik
I’d say the most infuriating thing about the demonization of immigrants by Republicans is the family separation and those without equal protection of the law. But they don’t love them. They fuck and use them. Maybe a little lip service about how clean the toilet seats are.
The Moar You Know
The NY Times published her name? How nice. She’ll be deported by the end of the week. So will Ms. Diaz.
Total dick move.
NotMax
Dare one say they were being cagey about it?
zhena gogolia
I couldn’t watch any of the GHWB hagiography, but the clip of Trump standing there pouting while everyone else is reciting the Apostles’ Creed is really something.
TenguPhule
@NotMax:
Irony.
John Revolta
Trump has got golf trophies?? Like, more than one? I thought Repubs were against participation awards?
rikyrah
Whatever.
Trump says approval rating would be 75 percent without Mueller
Jordan Fabian
President Trump claimed Thursday that his approval rating would be 75 percent if it wasn’t for special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
“Without the phony Russia Witch Hunt, and with all that we have accomplished in the last almost two years (Tax & Regulation Cuts, Judge’s, Military, Vets, etc.) my approval rating would be at 75% rather than the 50% just reported by Rasmussen,” Trump tweeted.
Trump blasted Mueller’s probe as “Presidential Harassment!”
tobie
Yup, I live near thoroughbred horse farms. I imagine most of the workers taking care of the horses and cleaning the stalls are undocumented. These farms depend on the immigrants’ back-breaking work, and yet the owners vote Republican every time. I guess they think laws only apply to little people, not to them.
John Revolta
Trump has got golf trophies?? Like, more than one? I thought Repubs were against participation awards?
schrodingers_cat
My Yoga teacher ex-friend unironically told me once that the best part about the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act was that she gets interesting food to eat. Yes, we exist for your gratification alone.
A Ghost To Most
@Patricia Kayden:
Facts don’t matter to fascists.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Looks like sucker money is coming in to shore up a fundamentally unsound market.
This prop is going to be coming from “expertly managed” mutual funds and pensions, as well as some schmucks who always fall for the “it’s the bargain of a lifetime” financial sales pitch.
In 2008, we had a well-intentioned idiot with a rapacious, yet minimally competent financial team, and whichever candidate won, you knew that consequences would be addressed at the bottom rung. Now? A malevolent thug with delusions of adequacy combined with the dumbest economic and diplomatic team this side of the Great Depression?
The Trump Family meeting the Ural Soviet scenario would be a nonzero possibility in that event.
jl
@schrodingers_cat: ” Trump has got golf trophies?? ”
probably just as legit as the fake Time magazine Trump cover issues Donnie used to plaster around his properties.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
This. If they actually wanted to do something about illegal immigration, they’d punish employers who hire them.
TenguPhule
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
The market can stay irrational longer then you can stay solvent.
Chetan Murthy
@Roger Moore: @Mnemosyne: It’s not just a theoretical or rare thing, either. I read an article some months ago in FTFNYT (IIRC) about this very thing: workers injured on the job, who signed up for workmen’s comp (or engaged an attorney) who were deported pretty much instanter. It was clear that employers’ attorneys were working with ICE to get those folks out of the country where they couldn’t pursue their compensation claims.
It’s a moral abomination, the way we (as a country) allow this.
ETA: I see older immigrant men sometimes who have obvious leg issues. It pisses me the fuck off. B/c if somebody like me has a leg injury, he gets medical care and PT, so he can walk again normally. A poor guy? He just has to suck it up. Which of us is more likely to have those leg issues? Me (a programmer) or him (a manual laborer)? Fuck.
jl
@TenguPhule: And Trump is mad at Fed chair Jerome Powell for trying to save his sorry incompetent ass.
The Fed has most power to inject liquidity into system during downturn, and the current Fed Yellen/Powell regime (for Powell is a mini-me Yellen) well qualified to do that (assuming Powelll gets enough no-the-job experience before big shit hits the fan). But Fed will have to get cooperation from Treasury, and that is run by Mnuchin, so hasn’t shown any qualifications for any kind of job yet. We can only hope and pray.
Edit: sorry, unfair to Mnuchin, He can pose for James Bond-style sexy photos with sheets of smoking hot sexy $$$$$ currency with his pretty wife. So, he has some chops for the job. Well, OK, the photos would have been sexy except Mnuchin was in them.
JPL
What a brave soul Morales is. She knew she would be fired and probably deported, but wanted everyone to know what a hypocrite the president is. His base will just fawn over his large tips, and praise trump for being just a generous man. IOKIYR
rikyrah
@Mnemosyne:
Nothing but truth.
Cermet
Please, its always about obtaining money with those low life thugs, which is all about obtaining and keeping power. Thugs will sell their own sister to a slave trader if they thought it would enable them to hold onto power. Damning Immigrants is just a means to an end. No more.
Schlemazel
@John Revolta:
OF COURSE Dump has golf trophies. Just like his Time Magazine covers.
People who have golfed with him or caddied for him tell stories of hard core cheating. It is who he is
Chip Daniels
The Trumpists are happy to treat them kindly, so long as they can hold the whip hand, and dispense kindness at will.
When the maid becomes a peer, and speaks to them as an equal, then the Trumps of the world become enraged.
PJ
@schrodingers_cat: One of the key factors that people use to argue for and against immigration is its impact on culture (the other obviously being its impact on the economy.) Humanitarian concerns are secondary for many. Most citizens of any country have no personal stake in any particular individual who wants to immigrate there, and why should they – they don’t know them. So, while your yoga friend’s comment was superficial, it is a reflection of what many like about immigration – exposure to, and participation in, different cultures.
gene108
Trump voters don’t care what he does. He’s their white supremacist savior.
The people, who will be enraged by this already hate Trump.
@The Moar You Know:
Real dick move. Maybe they can get Presidential Pardons (I keed, I keed).
PJ
@Schlemazel: I heard a story (second hand) from a wealthy businessman, long-time Republican, who couldn’t stand Trump and would never vote for him, because he cheated at golf. Making the rich richer is one thing, but cheating at golf is another thing entirely.
NotMax
@Schlemazel
“Perfect score, sir. 239.”
Mnemosyne
@zhena gogolia:
All he had to do was hold the fucking paper up and move his lips while he pretended to read it, but he couldn’t even be arsed to do the bare minimum. Christ, what an asshole.
Another Scott
@schrodingers_cat: +1
Donnie and his minions love “illegal” immigrants as long as they can keep them under their thumbs in positions where they can’t complain.
Cui bono?
tl;dr – “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.”
[ETA – I see that Capt. Mnemo is on the same page.]
Cheers,
Scott.
Wild Cat
@schrodingers_cat: That bastard has never paid a price for that racist monologue. I loathe him. He’s so empty he can’t even leave the spotlight. Now he’ll get a pity-fuck Oscar for playing a drug mule.
cain
@zhena gogolia:
I wonder how that is playing in evangelical circles? Will there be anger and then suddenly it will be fine because the mega-church pastors will say it’s because Jesus wanted him to be that way?
Aleta
Some of the well-off people who voted for Trump live in neighborhoods where immigrants are the only ones around who can do tree work and keep the tractors and mowers running on their estates, do the small engine repair and drainage ditch work. They believe ‘their people’ will be left alone.
boatboy_srq
This was the reason so many of us laughed at the GOP convention in 96. “Illegal immigration” was one of the leading discussion items – and the event was held in SAN DIEGO. Who, we asked, did they think was driving them to and from the event, making up their rooms, cooking their food, pouring their cocktails, pressing their suits, and generally making the event possible? We wondered how many got short-sheeted, taken the long way to and from the venue, or otherwise treated to petty revenge at the hands of the people they were relying on to get them together so they could plot those workers’ removal.
At least Dole/Kemp did not get the opportunity to try a national version of Prop 187, or Nathan Deal’s now-infamous HB 87 (which latter item caused Georgia to experience historic harvest failure thanks to a scarcity of agricultural labor).
boatboy_srq
@cain: White heterosexual male (or at least the remnants thereof). Instant pass. Just watch.
Chyron HR
@Aleta:
They believe ‘their people’
will be left alonecan always be replaced.Chetan Murthy
@PJ:
The -do- use it. But it’s a false narrative here in America. Scratch any second- or third-generation immigrant and you’ll find an American, wanting all the same things any other American wants. We assimilate fast, b/c (as my Jewish friend Rafe once put it to me): “The American Dream is the most corrosive social force ever imagined”.
All that great food? I suspect it comes from first-generation immigrants who remember how it was cooked back in The Old Country. Their kids and grandkids, if they open restos, are gonna do the “fusion” versions of those dishes. Kinda like the difference between “Dosa” (upscale Indian resto, “Indian food for white people”, in the words of a relative) and “Udupi Palace” (the real thing).
Heck if I know how to cook Indian food. And I prefer Thai anyway, mang.
jl
@cain: Their preacher men have told them that Trump is God’s vessel sent to do justice on earth. Saul was evil too, and had to face God’s justice. Therefore, so what if Trump flunks all their morality tests? God chose him and who are the flock to question?
Trump thinks Jesus’ earthly teachings are weak and loser, and doesn’t care? US fundies don’t follow the earthly Jesus, or his teachings. That is the previous Dispensation. US fundies follow the Risen Christ, who will come to judge, reward, and punish. No softy love your neighbor stuff for that guy, the Samaritan goes to Hell, no matter how many wayfarers he rescued.
Of course, that kind of thinking is why many traditional Christian theologians consider End Times fundamentalism as a kind of heresy, assuming anyone cares about that anymore.
Aleta
@Mnemosyne: He’ll blame the Bushes for not putting up a teleprompter. Witch hunt wants to make him look bad.
Schlemazel
The former Sports Illustrated and ESPN columnist told the Washington Post that “when it comes to cheating, he’s an 11 on a scale of one to 10.”
NotMax
@Chetan Murthy
First, gather together individual portions of 132 herbs and spices…
;)
scav
@cain: It’s an article of faith that evangelicals and their chosen are pre-forgiven. Hardly a surprise.
Mike in NC
Eww. A Presidential Medal of Freedom may be in her future.
Doug R
@John Revolta: I am sure his trophy is for most Mulligans.
Think of the golfing scene in Goldfinger.
Gvg
You know, when I read the snippet about Ms. Morales having worn an American flag pin given to her by the Secret Service when Trump visited….I thought this was going to be about tapes and transcripts and microphones. Pity.
Aleta
@Chyron HR: In this case I think they see them as their possessions.
John Revolta
@Schlemazel: So I heard a joke:
Jared, Ivanka, Pence and Mother were walking around at Bedminster when they heard a commotion behind some bushes. They ran back there and found Cheetolini laying on the ground dead, with Melania standing over him with a golf club.
“Jesus Christ, Mel!! What did you do? It looks like you whacked him about twenty times!!!”
“Well, guys, you know, I mean we’re all friends here, right?…………..just put me down for a six.”
Aleta
Same WaPo:
No one’s going to go to the police with a rape or battery charge against T or friends at a party they had to go to without pay.
NotMax
@Mike in NC
They left out the part about placing the complimentary Big Mac, perfectly centered – or else – on the freshly fluffed pillow. //
trollhattan
@Schlemazel:
When Trump play chess, every piece is queen!
“Ha-ha, I beat you in five moves. Loser!”
jl
@Mike in NC: And after Trump makes his house staff a kind of praetorian guard and puts them in the military, she gets a purple heart. And, hey, why not Medal of Honor. Trump hires only the best people, except the one who go bad and say mean things about him. Like that slob flunky Cohen, who Trump barely know who he was anyway.
Was what she said good or bad? Who can say? Depends on how it plays with his base. If they don’t notice, Trump might not either.
trollhattan
@John Revolta:
I approve this message.
PJ
@Chetan Murthy: Sure, obviously most immigrant groups assimilate, and the culture they bring becomes Americanized, as they do. But for that first generation, and the Americans that experience that culture for the first time, it’s not just a novelty, it’s an expansion of their experience, even in as everyday a way as food. (Where I grew up in Nowheresville, ethnic food meant Italian and tacos from Jack-in-the-Box. They didn’t even have a Chinese restaurant. Now there’s not only decent (but not great) Indian and Thai food, they even have a Hindu temple a half mile from what used to be the only intersection with a stoplight. That’s a positive change for me, and for many people, I think.)
germy
boatboy_srq
@Aleta: Sweatshop modeling. That’s a new one.
Jay
@The Moar You Know: @JPL: @gene108:
Both of the “former illegals” who came forward for the FTFNYT story are now landed immigrants.
As long as Miller doesn’t get to revoke Citizenship and Landed Immigrant status on the basis of Blood Quantum or some other spurious bs, like having used social services of any kind while “illegal”, they are safe enough for a POC in Trump’s America.
They might still get fired, but it’s not like there’s a shortage of shit to clean up in America, they’ll probably do okay or better than working for The Insane Clown POSus.
Mnemosyne
@Chetan Murthy:
Immigrants to the US always end up adapting their food to what’s available and — if they open a restaurant — to local tastes. That’s why corned beef and cabbage is actually an American Irish dish, not Irish. Corned beef is what their Jewish immigrant neighbors in the tenements cooked, and it was cheaper and easier to get than the pork they used for the Irish dish.
Oh, and ketchup (catsup, whatever) is Chinese fish sauce with the fish taken out.
Gvg
Ok I read the story. These women approached the times on purpose. They are mad at Trump and the way he talks about immigrants. They expect to lose their jobs and possibly be deported. At least one has a lawyer. This story is a fuck you to Trump and some of the management at the property.
Jay
@Doug R:
You can get any minor trophy you want at any Value Village for $0.75 and any engraver will make and install a new nameplate for $5.
jl
@PJ: But I think immigrants themselves assimilate far more rapidly now than in previous eras. Everyone who comes here as a kid, or born to immigrants, wants to pick up English asap and learn it well.
In the past, families spoke little English for decades. There is history of that in my own family. During the Civil War, third and fourth generation Swiss-German speakers had to have translators to understand Union forces who tried to explain to them that a war was going on and their little town would get wrecked up good and proper if they didn’t help with defenses, and maybe some three months enlistments would be cool. Had to find a translator who knew English and their weird little Swiss-German micro-dialect.
Benjamin Franklin complained about German immigrants who spoke German as their daily language for generations.
Same thing happened to Chinese in California in early 20th century, as soon as whites quit beating the crap out of them when they had the nerve to leave the ethnic ghettos whites tried to designate for them. The kids learned English asap.
Schlemazel
@PJ:
MN is often criticized (by local GOP assclowns) for being open to immigrants. We have the largest Hmong community in the US and large East African groups now. I am not 15 minutes from great Thai, Vietnamese, Indian, BBQ, Somali, Ethiopian, Brazilian, Cuban and I am probably missing a few. Now its true there are some mediocre joints out there so you can’t trust all of them but the variety adds to French, Italian, German and Chinese we have had for years
Ohio Mom
@Gvg: Wow. They are brave and selfless. They really do deserve medals (as someone upthread suggested).
Here’s hoping their actions are not in vain.
Schlemazel
@jl:
I’m a child of the 50 & 60s who went to school with many first & second generation kids. immigrants mostly spoke to old language, Kids were bilingual and grandkids English only. That mirrors the kids I work with today
Mike in NC
Good grief, is there any end to the endless scams this turd has pursued during his deplorable career? Did “management” of these models possibly include behind closed door “interviews” with Fat Bastard that may have included enticing them to disrobe?
NotMax
@Schlemazel
Used to hoard pennies when living in the area to save up enough for a killer diller of a meal once or twice a year at Charlie’s.
MomSense
Maine desperately needs more immigrants. Our population isn’t big enough to support the infrastructure needed for a state of our geographic size. We are also the oldest state in the country. It’s a big problem.
Schlemazel
@NotMax:
Never ate there or Murry’s. Probably should try Murry’s just to say I have. OTOH I can buy prime & do them perfectly at home so dead cow is not something I go out for
Jay
@jl:
ReThugs react to imaginary Immigrants and Refugee’s, not actual ones.
All the ReThug fears, resentments and anger are to completely imaginary constructs, from immigration to EMP weapons or the Iranian Republican Guard.
The only resentment and fear that they hold on to that is real, is that their “sucess” will be a some point, be recognized as being a sperm lottery winner or the result of being a mediocre White Male coasting on 200 years of Institutionalized White Male Privledge.
NotMax
@Schlemazel
Dunno if Forepaugh’s is still around in St. Paul. Ate there gratis right before it opened (proto beta testing). The onion rings were hands down the best ever.
Mnemosyne
@jl:
That changed by the late 19th century. My grandfather came here as a toddler from Italy and didn’t speak Italian. And he refused to allow his kids to learn Italian in the 1940s/1950s because they needed to be Americans and speak English.
I had a friend in high school who was a second-generation immigrant from India. Sometimes she and her mother would bicker in front of me, with her mother speaking Hindi (I think) and my friend replying in English. ? Never anything serious, just exasperated mother vs teenage daughter stuff.
Mnemosyne
@jl:
Actually, thinking about it further, what probably changed was the development of mass media, particularly radio. Immigrants who didn’t understand English were at a major disadvantage in the radio era (later the movie and TV era) because other people would know things before they did. It was less of a problem when newspapers were the primary mass medium because you could get a newspaper that was published in your native language.
Skepticat
@Aleta:
This reminds me of the line that tRump’s first and third wives prove that there are indeed some jobs that Americans just won’t do.
Ladyraxterinok
@cain: Evsngelical churches do NOT say the Apostles Creed.
In the 40s and 50s as kids in a SoBapt church in OK, we were taught that SoBaptists don’t say creeds–‘No creed but the Bible!!’ This left the long-lasting impression that creeds were another Catholic nono.
Don’t remember now when I first read a copy of the Apostles Creed.
jl
@Ladyraxterinok: Thanks for info on that. I don’t know the details of the attitudes of different Protestant sects on creeds. Being from the frozen chosen mainline Presbyterian flavor, I know we do say a version of the Apostles creed. But then, Presbys are second in line, after Lutherans, in being suspect denominations secretly in cahoots with the devil, stalking horses for the RC church and Judaism. So, probably makes sense from that perspective that Presbys mouth that kind of sinister incantation stuff.
boatboy_srq
@Mnemosyne: A lot of the change you describe stems from the “acceptability” of later waves of immigrants and their desire to join the society they had entered. Southern Europeans (Italians, Greeks, Slavs, Poles) each had their own difficulties fitting in, because prior waves of immigrants held higher social standing, the good jobs, the best houses/neighborhoods &c. Being perceived as “Other” was no longer the asset it had been for the earlier groups, which condition you hint at in your family’s experience. This is true also of groups arriving in multiple waves: Louisiana might be proudly French-founded and respected for its history, but French arriving a century or so after Louisiana was founded, and in parts of the US well removed from the Gulf of Mexico, had scant welcome. Old Spanish colonists in Florida, California and other territories merged into US society comparatively easily: later arrivals did not.
jl
@boatboy_srq: The support Hispanic Californios was necessary for an easy admission of California to the Union. So in 1849, the whites had to meet them at least halfway, and had to merge with, to accommodate, them. But 30 years later when the whites had enough power, the Californios were cordially told to go to hell.
But then, they sure had the nerve, had the insolence to invade the place first.
J R in WV
@zhena gogolia:
I have to admit, had I attended, I wouldn’t have been reciting any religious nonsense either. We were invited to attend a Christmas Eve mass a friend conducted at a small and rural church. It was crowded, and everyone but wife and I took communion.
I thought it would be totally inappropriate for a couple of pagan heathens to share in a sacred religious rite we don’t believe in. But after that, we got stared at big time… Still wouldn’t do it. Didn’t do it at aunt’s funeral mass, either, nor did my dad.
Sorry if the religious among us were offended, but I just don’t believe in it. In fact I disbelieve strongly in it. So it goes.
Of course Trump doesn’t believe in anything, and was too stupid to even know he was expected to recite with everyone else, and his wife wasn’t willing to clue him in.
Mnemosyne
Well, communion is different than following along with the service. You’re not supposed to take communion unless you’re a member of that denomination. In fact, there’s a little message printed in the Catholic missals informing non-Catholics that they should NOT take communion.
If for some reason you ever feel like walking up there without causing a fuss, you can cross your arms over your chest and the priest will bless you instead. Otherwise, just move out of the way of the people who go for communion and try not to block them when they go back to their seats.
Which is a long-winded way of saying that, unlike you, Trump claims to be a Christian, so he can fucking well do the bare fucking minimum rather than making it obvious that he doesn’t give a shit about the religion he claims he believes in.
NotMax
@J R in WV
Until this thread I’d never heard of the Apostle’s Creed. (Really, truly.)
Now, the Apollo Creed…
zhena gogolia
@J R in WV:
But he pretends to be a Christian.
zhena gogolia
@Mnemosyne:
I think it’s only Catholic churches that tell people they’re not supposed to take Communion unless they belong to the denomination. In our church anyone can take communion if they want to.
jl
@zhena gogolia: Strict conservative Presbyterians have the same nonsense of not taking communion unless you have all your denominational paperwork in order. The big mainline Presby denominations go out of the way of inviting anyone to take communion, I guess to make sure people know they can if they want.
Stuart Frasier
@Mnemosyne:
I’m not sure where the notion corned beef isn’t Irish came from. It was a major export of Ireland as early as the 1700s.
Stuart Frasier
@Mnemosyne:
1600s, that is.
Ruckus
@jl:
The not speaking english as immigrants is a lot more recent than Ben.
My ex is Chinese-American, her parents moved here about 70 yrs ago and didn’t speak english to the end. Mom could swear just fine in Chinese though. Ex asked me how I knew, told her, you don’t need a translator for someone speaking like that in any language. Just a note – later on mom was pretty good, made me ride in the family limo when her husband passed. Hugged me after her other daughter’s wedding reception. Only took about 15 yrs though.
Mnemosyne
@Stuart Frasier:
Here’s an article from Food & Wine that explains it and includes additional links:
https://www.foodandwine.com/fwx/food/complicated-irish-history-corned-beef
Short version: corned beef was a luxury food for the export market, so ordinary Irish people couldn’t afford to eat it. Remember, Ireland was a net exporter of food during the Potato Famine because it was far more profitable than the impoverished local market.
Mike Dixon
Come on everybody. Of course Trump is a good golfer. He plays four days a week and it’s the only thing he’s actually good at.
Stuart Frasier
@Mnemosyne:
As your link says “While categorized more as an urban myth, it is also said that the Irish began to love corned beef again thanks to their Jewish neighbors.” I grew up in Ireland. We are corned beef there. The only American thing about it is the association with St. Patrick’s Day.
Stuart Frasier
Ate, that is. Anyway, there are a lot of urban legends around food.
Mnemosyne
@Stuart Frasier:
Well, I don’t want to re-start the Great Pizza War of 2018, but I will say that foods get passed back and forth between countries way more than people like to admit. Corned beef became popular in Ireland when the country became more prosperous after independence and because American tourists expected it.
(Short version of the Great Pizza War: it started in Naples, was brought to America, spread widely, and then was imported back to parts of Italy that didn’t originally have it but American tourists expected it. There’s kind of a common theme here.)