Tom Deignan

For over a decade, Tom Deignan has written the weekly “Sidewalks” column for The Irish Voice. He also writes columns about books, movies, and history for Irish America magazine, and is a regular book reviewer for the Newark Star-Ledger and America magazine. Deignan is the author of Irish Americans: Coming to America (Barron’s, 2004), and served as a contributing writer for Irish American Chronicle (Publications International Ltd., 2009). His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Observer, Publisher’s Weekly, and Commonweal, as well as the Bloom’s Guide series of books on literary criticism and McGraw-Hill’s annual series of books on race and ethnicity. Currently an English teacher at Automotive High School in Brooklyn and Middlesex County College in New Jersey, Deignan has taught history, cinema and English at CUNY, St. John’s University and Bowling Green State University. He is working on a novel about a New York City high school.

• As a child of the 1980s…