In Who's Your Paddy? Racial Expectations and the Struggle for Irish American Identity, Jennifer Nugent Duffy traces the development of Irish American cultural identity as a race-based tradition in Yonkers, New York. Duffy argues that as nineteenth-century Irish immigrants responded to the challenges of life in the United States, they sought to prove their “racial fitness” (2) by adhering to white, middle-class standards of hard work, family, faith, and patriotism, equating these ideals with being “good Paddies” (4). Subsequent generations responded to and were judged by this model of Irishness in different ways. By emphasizing the importance of racial expectations, or “racial hazing,” as she terms it (3), Duffy adds a significant dimension to the study of ethnic acculturation.

Taking issue with existing literature that privileges class over race, Duffy argues that the two are actually inseparable components in the formation of Irish American identity. Utilizing both historical and ethnographic analysis, Duffy examines how different cohorts of the Yonkers Irish community interact with and respond to Irishness as a race-based tradition. She breaks them down as follows: assimilated Irish ethnics, whose ancestors arrived in the nineteenth century; Irish “white flighters,” who left Ireland during the 1950s and early 1960s and settled in Yonkers after a stay in the Bronx or Upper Manhattan (5); and the largely undocumented “new” Irish who arrived beginning in the 1980s through the present day (5).

Duffy's first two chapters provide the framework for the rest of the study. Chapter 1 is a history of Yonkers, New York, a small manufacturing city that, like many others, experienced the loss of industry in the years after World War II. Duffy provides a thorough review of the literature on the Irish in America as she lays out her argument for Irishness as a race-based tradition formed by nineteenth-century British colonialism and US slavery. The rest of the study focusses on the examination of Irishness as understood and explained by the various Irish generations in Yonkers through the lens of neoliberalism, examining such issues as Irish bar politics, the celebration of St. Patrick's Day, and the immigration reform movement's efforts to legalize the Irish. Irish Americans and Irish white flighters largely conform to the “good Paddy” model, Duffy argues, and evaluate more recent arrivals utilizing the same criteria. Newer Irish immigrants with “poor” work ethics challenged the expected Irish American model, and thus were labelled “bad Paddies” (4). At the same time, however, illegal Irish immigrants felt compelled to uphold the white racial order by defending their racial fitness over other nonwhite groups in their fight for legalization.

One of the most valuable aspects of the study is Duffy's ethnographic fieldwork. She spent two years engaged in participant observation at community gatherings, Irish bars, St. Patrick's Day parades, and meetings of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform. As the daughter of Irish white flighter bar owners, Duffy was able to gain subjects' trust, and relies heavily on interviews with Irish Americans and Irish immigrants for her findings. Such work is exemplary, and adds much to her overall conclusions.

There are a few issues with the study, however. Duffy does not explain the source of her title until chapter 4 (150), an explanation that should have been provided in the introduction. More significantly, while a case study (a fact not noted in the title, either), Duffy's book tends to attribute universality to her Yonkers findings to encompass all of Irish America. As such, the book would benefit from at least passing comparisons with cities with similarly multifaceted Irish communities. In addition, while Duffy provides an interesting interpretation of how Irish Americans and older immigrants viewed newer immigrants, as well as more recent changes in Ireland and America, she neglects to analyze generational issues in greater depth.

These critiques aside, Duffy's richly researched case study is a welcome addition to the growing body of work on the racial aspects and generational challenges of ethnic acculturation. While her conclusions apply to Yonkers specifically, the book's greater value lies in its contribution to the larger Irish American story. As Timothy Meagher argues in Inventing Irish America (2000), there was no “typical” Irish experience in any city; only by comparing the experiences of the Irish in different times and places can we better understand how national trends interact with local circumstances.