Skerry, Peter. "What are we to make of Samuel Huntington?" Society 43:1 (Nov-Dec 2005): 82-92.

“At one point in Who Are We? Samuel Huntington related a little-known episode of the Mexican War, in which Irish immigrant soldier deserted the American army to serve with their fellow Catholics in what became known as the San Patricio Battalion of the Mexican Army. He then notes that several years later many other Irish immigrants served honorably in the Union armies and thereby “sounded the death knell for organized anti-Irish Know-Nothing nativism.”

This is vintage Huntington. Every alert to context and the fragility of social order, he highlights conflicting immigrant loyalties in the midst of war. And while he notes that many Mexican – and Muslim – immigrants are serving with distinction today in Iraq, he is not convinced that such a limited war will afford them the same opportunity to prove their loyalty to the US as WWII did for earlier immigrants.”

– Excerpt

Online:
Boston College [pdf]