The Wearing of the Green Card : Immigration: Forget the green beer and grand parades. America could best salute the Irish by inviting them here.

The heritage, the whole psychological makeup of this country is one of immigration. And yet every immigrant seems in a headlong rush to shed ethnicity. Those born here to parents who have also lived their whole lives here are no more aware, most of the time, of their psychohistory than a fish is aware that it is wet.

For the 40 million or so with Irish roots, that memory is jogged once a year by the celebration of St. Patrick’s Day. Every bar in America is festooned with fluorescent shamrocks, and the country’s older cities stage parades to recall the days when the Irish were as removed from the cultural center as today’s Asians and Latinos. It’s a great day for the Irish-Americans.

But what of the Irish themselves? Over there, St. Patrick’s Day is a religious occasion, giving thanks to this zealous man for bringing Christianity to Ireland. Things were better in the 5th Century. Celtic civilization was alive and well, and the terms unemployment and emigration were unheard of. Today, what was once the island of saints and scholars has seen a terrible decline.

To be Irish, as I know, is a painful state of mind, full of contradictions. We are quick to point to the country’s industrial success, yet must acknowledge that one in five people is out of work. We are pleased to hear that Ireland has the highest standard of education in Europe, but one in three of our college classmates (myself included) end up living elsewhere. We are delighted with the survey that says the Irish are the happiest people in Europe, yet we know that bitterness and resentment are widespread, kept in check only by alcoholism and other forms of self-destructive behavior.

Each trip home reaffirms the sagging living standards. People turn off their water heaters during the day because energy is so expensive. Burglary is commonplace--to steal the VCR. The concept of education has been reduced to a competition for scarce places in the country’s universities. Eating out is the preserve of the expense-account crowd. Gas, at $5 a gallon, puts Sunday trips beyond the range of those who don’t have company cars.

What, then, are the Irish-Americans celebrating? Are they giving thanks for their own deliverance? If so, why so little evidence of compassion for those they left behind? Should this not be a day of prayer for Ireland’s future? But no, the great Irish diaspora would rather swill green beer wearing undersized Leprechaun hats.

If you think this a harsh commentary, then you are probably not someone who lined up in the rain outside the U.S. Embassy in Dublin, heart thumping until you saw the work visa on your passport that was handed to you through bulletproof glass. Yes, I am a recent immigrant, and a very fortunate one. I was not out of work, but I came here in search of that most cherished of American ideals, a better life for myself, my wife and my children.

There are many thousands more young people who crave the same opportunity. The hysteria that surrounded the recent U.S. visa lotteries surely answers any doubt about the measure of despair in Ireland.

Our American friends are invariably astonished to hear of the ordeal involved in coming to live here. How quickly a nation forgets. But the millions who celebrate St. Patrick’s Day have no excuse. Ireland and the Irish may well be the single biggest ethnic influence on today’s American psyche. Why not open the door to all Irish citizens to live and work in the States? The numbers are not a problem. If every unemployed Irish person showed up this year, it would represent about one-tenth of the total annual immigration to the United States. Of course, all of them won’t. For many people, economic hardship is preferable to the loneliness of exile.

Why make a special case of the Irish? Because we are one. Ireland has one of the most persistently violent histories in the world. Psychologically, we are the product of an 800-year-long concentration camp. And it is these emotional trappings, and all the ways we have tried to deal with the past, that stop the country and most of its citizens from achieving their full potential.

What a gift such a move would be! At no cost to the United States, one of the best-loved of America’s many heritages would be given an incalculable measure of hope. And the very idea of such a choice being available to everyone might cause Ireland to realize the possibilities in its own future.