Dear Friends,
In this week’s newsletter, the little-known story of Irish-American soldiers who switched sides to fight for Mexico in the Mexican-American Warm, and how it relates to the moral dilemmas from Netflix’s sci-fi series 3 Body Problem. Also, new music for midlife and a handy tech tip for grocery shopping.
Could a good old-fashioned alien invasion unite humanity against a common enemy? Or maybe that’s not how it would play out.
While watching Netflix’s excellent 3 Body Problem1, I was reminded of a group of Irish-American soldiers who, fed up with anti-Irish sentiment, switched sides during the Mexican-American War in 1846.
Consider this: had Henry Clay won the closely contested 1844 presidential election, the US might never have declared war on Mexico.2 San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Salt Lake City could all be part of Mexico today.
Instead, Polk beat Clay by fewer than 40,000 votes (about 1%)3 and declared war on Mexico4 The US negotiated the Mexican Cessation of 1848 the same week that gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill, triggering the gold rush that brought 300,000 new residents to Northern California within five years. 🤯
One of the more intriguing episodes in Mexican-American history is the story of Saint Patrick’s Battalion, a group of 200 Irish-American soldiers who defected from the US Army to defend Mexico. Fifty of those soldiers were eventually executed by hanging for treachery as the American flag was raised over Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City in September 1847.
The Irish-American soldiers switched sides for the same reasons that convinced the fictional character Dr. Ye Wenjie from 3 Body Problem to join forces with the aliens: they became disillusioned with the state of humanity. Dr. Ye Wenjie gave up on humanity when her physicist father was killed by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution.
The soldiers of Saint Patrick’s Battalion were fed up with anti-Catholic discrimination by the US Protestant majority.5
John Riley, the leader of Saint Patrick’s Battalion, fled Ireland during the Potato Famine and arrived in the US in 1845, where he enlisted in the 5th U.S. Infantry Regiment in Michigan. Fed up with the bullying by Protestant soldiers, he swam across the Rio Grande River and joined the Mexican Army. Soon, he was joined by dozens of other Catholic immigrant defectors who formed the San Patricios and fought against their former officers at battles over the next 18 months until they met their fate at the Battle of Chapultepec.6
I asked several friends the same question that Sigal Samuel puts to her readers in a great piece on the ethical dilemmas of the Netflix series 3 Body Problem: “Would you swear a loyalty oath to humanity — or cheer on its extinction?”
What if the aliens turn out to be more ethical than humans? What if they’re better creatures? Should we still kill them? My friends unanimously declared their loyalty to Team Human.
When is it right to defect? What if you’re Russian and join the Ukrainian army? What if you grew up in Afghanistan under Taliban rule and decided to support the US invasion to promote democracy and women’s rights? Are they traitors? To whom?
What about you? Would you consider siding with aliens if they promised a kinder, gentler society? Was the United States right to invade Mexico and annex half of its territory? Was Saint Patrick’s Battalion on the winning moral side of the conflict, even if they lost the war?
Whatever the case, I’m no longer convinced that aliens would bring us together. The 25 million indigenous Mexicans of 1521 could have easily conquered Hernán Cortés’s army of 500 Spanish soldiers if they worked together.7 Instead, long-held divisions and resentments led some indigenous armies to join the Spaniards to conquer the Aztecs.
The lessons for us? Treat your immigrants well. And treat your enemies well too; they may become your fellow soldiers.
🧰 A useful tool
I often struggle to find Iris’ favorite tea at the grocery store and thought this tip for using the default Photos app on the iPhone was great:
🎵 Music for midlife
My buddy Revaz turned me on to Hovvdy. Kinda Pete Yorn vibes, but with a lyrically artful examination of midlife. Here’s an excerpt from Ian Cohen’s touching review in Pitchfork:
Countless playlists and anthologies have collected the greatest songs about a first kiss and a last goodbye; mourning a parent and becoming one yourself; best friends and mortal enemies. Hovvdy isn’t going to tell you how to navigate these things. On one song, they’re letting loved ones know that their time together mattered, and on the next they’re setting boundaries. They might reach out to a friend in quiet agony or chastise themselves for not doing so earlier. They’re figuring it all out as it comes, just like the rest of us, and the endlessly generous Hovvdy doesn’t attempt to be a manual for living, but a scrapbook of moments of love and loss from a life well-lived.
I love the album art, the shorter dude with his arms around the taller one, the Kerouac-Cassady vibes.
⍞ Three Quotes
Pessimism is more arrogant than optimism. Optimism is simply that we know for a fact that we are capable of solving problems. Pessimism is the conviction that we are not. The future isn't worse unless people stop trying to make it better.
~ Zachary Karabell of the Progress Network, featured in Reason Magazine
I find that the dismissive form of realism is guarding those borders and shutting down those horizons of possibility. It reminds me of parents who say, “Oh, you’re gay . . . well, of course I accept you, but it’s going to be a very hard life.” Instead of saying, “This is a new world, and we are going to build it together, and you’re going to have my full support.”
Judith Butler interviewed by Masha Gessen for the New Yorker
I don't get offended by anybody's humor. I think, look, Don Rickles did a lot of racist jokes, but, man, he was really funny. That was a really funny racist.
Dave Chapelle is a friend of mine. I have a trans child. I'm not going to not be Dave's friend because of his point of view. We don't have to think alike. You're still my friend. There's things I learn from you. And hopefully, through conversations, we could come to the fence and agree on and disagree on some things, but we affect change in each other, and that's life.
Marlon Wayans interviewed by David Marchese on Americans becoming too sensitive and forgetting how to laugh and have fun.
Have a lovely week,
David
Okay, the acting and character development are kinda crappy and some of the plot lines disappear without explanation, but the storytelling is so good that I remained hooked.
There is an epic thread on Quora, “What if Henry Clay would have won the U.S. Presidency in 1844?”
The third-party candidate James G. Birney won 3% of the vote. Had he not run, Clay likely would have won. Will historians make the same observation about the US 2024 election?
Ulysses S. Grant was a young lieutenant during the Mexican-American War. In his memoir, he wrote: “For myself, I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger nation against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territories.”
In the 1850s, the Irish faced the same hostility as today’s immigrants,” writes Sean Connolly in a recent piece for the Washington Post. The story of anti-Catholic “Philadelphia nativist riots” of 1844 is pretty wild.
John Riley was not one of the 50 soldiers executed by the US army via hanging, but he was branded with a hot cattle iron with a D on his cheek for defector. The mass hanging of Irish-American soldiers by the US Army is little known in the United States, but Saint Patrick’s Battalion is celebrated every St. Patrick’s Day in Mexico. In Mexico City, there is memorial to the Battalion and a bust of John Riley. In 1999, a movie was made about Riley’s life and a Mexican-American novelist recently imagined a love story between a widowed Mexican healer and a soldier based on Riley.
This is my favorite population visualization of all time:
Not to swing over the bulk of your thought provoking piece, but to answer your titular question: I'm on Marlon Wayans's side on sensitivity and humor. Current state of the union: too soft.
Let me make questionable jokes. Sure, gasp at them, but do so while trying you're best not to laugh.