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Roundtable: Catholicism and the San Patricio Battalion
The following description was submitted by the event organizer.
Why the San Patricio Battalion did what it did, and why Catholicism might have been more important than racism.
In advance of The Corrido of the San Patricios, join us for a roundtable discussion with Portland State University professor Marc Rodriguez, founding Artistic Director of Corrib Theatre Gemma Whelan, President of the Ancient Order of the Hibernians Portland Chapter Bill Gallagher, and Mount Angel Seminary Professor of History Stewart King.
In 1846, two hundred Irish immigrants defected from the US military to fight for Mexico during the Mexican-American War. This panel of scholars will discuss and consider the role of the Irish conscripts who made up the San Patricio Battalion and consider their place in the history of Mexico, the United States, and modern Ireland.
Marc Rodriguez is Professor of History and Editor of the Pacific Historical Review at Portland State University. In 2012, he was awarded the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies Tejas Nonfiction Award for his book The Tejano Diaspora: Mexican Americanism and Ethnic Politics in Texas and Wisconsin. Professor Rodriguez received his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, his M.A. and Ph.D. from Northwestern University, and a Juris Doctor, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Rodriguez has become recognized as a leading authority on the history of Mexican American internal migration and Chicano era politics.
Gemma Whelan is an Irish-born theatre director and educator. She is founding artistic director of corrib theatre in Portland, Oregon, and Wilde Irish Productions in the San Francisco Bay Area. Gemma has directed more than seventy-five stage productions and is also an award-winning screenwriter, film director, and published novelist. She graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, and has graduate degrees from UC Berkeley in Theatre and San Francisco State in Cinema. Gemma lives in Portland, Oregon. Member of SDC, the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.
Bill Gallagher's four grandparents emigrated from Ireland at the beginning of the 20th century and all ended up in San Francisco. Bill has lived in Portland since 1983. He's currently the editor of the SW Community Connection newspaper and serves as the president of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Portland, OR Chapter. He has three sons (one named Liam) and two grandchildren (one just born named Oona).
Stewart King received his doctorate in history from Johns Hopkins University in 1997. He is the author of several works on the role of free people of color in the Americas, including Blue Coat or Powdered Wig: Free People of Color in Pre-Revolutionary Saint-Domingue and the Encyclopedia of Free Blacks and Free People of Color in the Americas: The African-American Heritage of Freedom. He is Professor of History at Mount Angel Seminary in Mount Angel, Oregon and has taught at Clackamas Community College, Lewis and Clark College, and the University of Portland.