All in the Family: Archie Bunker as a "WASP"

[King of Kensington]

One of the best TV programs ever, and Carroll O'Connor was a superb actor.  However making the Bunkers "WASPs" (Episcopalian!) was the most unconvincing aspect of the show.  Archie's accent was old-school, working class New York Irish (pretty much extinct today). 

Obviously this was done to not offend any "ethnic" Americans, but how many working class white Protestants lived in Queens in the 1970s? 

Mike Stivic was supposedly a Polish American from Chicago (whose last name wasn't Polish), though Rob Reiner couldn't hide his obvious New York accent. 

Perhaps you can argue that Archie Bunker was Irish in the same way that the Costanzas on Seinfeld were Jewish. 

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Presumably he was so because the programme was a remake of the infinitely superior British series Till Death Do Us Part.

[King of Kensington]

I don't think that's why.  Mike Stivic was Polish rather than Irish and a reformer than a revolutionary. 

The Irish New York working class accent which Archie Bunker had (basically extinct today) would be the closest equivalent to "old time working class New York." The white Protestant working class had long departed by the 1970s.

According to the 1980 census, only 3% of the population of Queens had English ancestry.  10% had German ancestry and 12% Irish.  16% were Italian, but obviously Archie Bunker wouldn't be descended from such a recent immigrant group. 

[bedstuy]

My grandfather is a working-class, Episcopalian, WASP from Queens.  And, he's also racist like Archie Bunker, so there.

[Deus Naturae]

Al is correct. Alf Garnett (the inspiration for Archie) was also supposed to be very anti-PC, and in the context of England that meant not liking Catholics and Irish people. So, that's why Archie was also a WASP, and didn't like micks or "incest sprinkling" priests.

[Thunderbird is the word]

He could have been one of the 3%. I imagined that he was a descendent of Bill the Butcher types from the 1850s,with possibly some German Lutheran immigrants mixed in on other branches of the family. That way he'd still be a white Protestant but possibly have some more recent immigrant mixed in since I guess the old "Bowery Boys" working class white Protestant New Yorkers would have largely been  demographically replaced through intermarriage.

[King of Kensington]

Again, I don't see how "Alf Garnett was Protestant, so Archie Bunker had to be Protestant too" is the reason.  All in the Family was set in New York so he spent far more time railing against "eye-talians" and Puerto Ricans than he did against the Irish or Catholics generally. 

Anti-Irish prejudice wasn't really "a thing" in NYC in the 70s.  Very different from London, where most white working class people were Anglo Saxon Protestants and where Irish immigration was more of a 20th century phenomenon than a 19th century one.

[H. Ross Peron]

My grandfather is a working-class, Episcopalian, WASP from Queens.  And, he's also racist like Archie Bunker, so there.

Has his family always lived in New York?

[bedstuy]

My grandfather is a working-class, Episcopalian, WASP from Queens.  And, he's also racist like Archie Bunker, so there.

Has his family always lived in New York?

I said WASP, not Lenape.

[H. Ross Peron]

My grandfather is a working-class, Episcopalian, WASP from Queens.  And, he's also racist like Archie Bunker, so there.

Has his family always lived in New York?

I said WASP, not Lenape.

Sorry I meant since 19th Century or however far you might trace back.

[King of Kensington]

My grandfather is a working-class, Episcopalian, WASP from Queens.  And, he's also racist like Archie Bunker, so there.

Does he rail against "micks" and are his closest friends all working class WASPs too?

(Though granted, as I said above, Archie Bunker only rarely really said anything about the Irish.  They hardly stood out anymore in 1970s New York.  And given the accent Carroll O'Connor gave him - it felt very forced and unconvincing). 

[Ban my account ffs!]

My grandfather is a working-class, Episcopalian, WASP from Queens.  And, he's also racist like Archie Bunker, so there.

Is that the one who has three empty bedrooms that aren't for you?

[patrick1]

I don't think that's why.  Mike Stivic was Polish rather than Irish and a reformer than a revolutionary. 

The Irish New York working class accent which Archie Bunker had (basically extinct today) would be the closest equivalent to "old time working class New York." The white Protestant working class had long departed by the 1970s.

According to the 1980 census, only 3% of the population of Queens had English ancestry.  10% had German ancestry and 12% Irish.  16% were Italian, but obviously Archie Bunker wouldn't be descended from such a recent immigrant group. 

My dad has that accent, as do some of my friends-  most of whom do are Firefighters and many of Rockaway. Typified by high pitch but you are right that it is disappearing a bit.

Here is Archie on the Irish
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIHDeNmNlOo

[King of Kensington]

My dad has that accent, as do some of my friends-  most of whom do are Firefighters and many of Rockaway. Typified by high pitch but you are right that it is disappearing a bit.

Here is Archie on the Irish
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIHDeNmNlOo

Totally forced and unconvincing. 

NYC is only 5% Irish today, and they're not really that working class anymore, with a majority of the city's Irish Americans being college graduates.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/census/acs_socio_10_nyc.pdf

George Carlin talks about Irish New York accents:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-7IJE7T84g

[memphis]

Archie also mentioned wanting to move to a place "where the minorities don't outnumber the majority." It was kind of the point that he was an anachronism who didn't fit in his own neighborhood anymore. Sort of like Clint Eastwood's character in Gran Torino.