Interview with Kevin Harkin. Perspective of a Child of Irish Immigrants, Hist 150 Spring 2023, Conducted by Ainsley, March 3rd, 2023.
Overview of Social Change Interview:
Our country has become a blend of immigrants from all over the world stretching from Western Europe to Asia to Africa. Ireland is one of those countries, that has a deep-rooted history of immigration to America. For many different reasons including famine, economic opportunities, and even religious freedom the Irish came here. Many came here by ships that landed in New York City and shortly the Irish had become almost half the population in boroughs like Brooklyn. When a large number of Irish immigrants populated the streets of Brooklyn, and the economic success got out, it started a large rush of people coming to America in the decades after. My grandparents, who were born and grew up in rural Ireland facing many of the same hardships that made people leave, had gotten wind of the success many of their family and friends were having in America and decided to make the move as well.
Although both have since passed, my dad and his story has been heavily influenced by his parents immigration and the cultural differences of his parents compared to many other kids in his neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY. While his parents are no longer here, the values and hard work they instilled in him from a young age is a topic that came up again and again in our interview. Even talking about events his parents weren’t around for like Covid 19 there was always something that tied back to them whether it was, how he composed himself, the fear and even continuing to work even during hard times.
Biography: I interviewed my dad, Kevin Harkin, who was born in Brooklyn in 1974 as a child of Irish immigrants. His parents immigrated from Ireland in the late1990s and they met in New York where they then got married and eventually had 3 kids. My dad spent his childhood in Brooklyn, NY as the youngest of 3. His family really valued education and all of his siblings including himHe grew up were first generation college students. Personally my dad attended school in Upstate NY where he studied business/marketing and also met my mom. Since then, he has been working in New York City for the same company working as a corporate evaluator since 1996. During this interview we initially discussed his upbringing in a home of immigrants shaped not only his childhood but life even now. We transitioned into talking more about his life/job now and how different tragedies have effect his life.
Research:
Immigration is a huge part of my families history, and since both my dads parents had similar Immigration journeys to the US, it made me question if this was the social norm fro Irish Immigrants at the time. My grandfather had the unique experience of taking a ship across the Atlantic Ocean and coming to the US through Ellis Island. Ellis Island is a world famous immigration processing station and a gateway to the “American Dream”. My grandfather having had experience in London prior to coming to the US served him greatly as Ellis Island was very strict and language barriers were favored. My grandparents didn’t have it easy and had to work very hard for what they had, which is why the instilled the importance of education into my dad and his siblings. They, as many immigrants, saw education as the gateway to success. My dad took this lesson and carried it through his life.
My dad works as a corporate evaluator for a company that works out of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). After getting his degree in business/marketing he was able to get this job shortly after graduation and he still works for the same company. His job surrounds him working with clients and describing financial trends for companies all of the globe.
Transcript:
Ainsley Harkin: Hi, I’m Ainsley Harkin. Today I’ll be interviewing my dad, Kevin Harkin. And we’re going to be discussing how being a child of immigrants from Ireland has impacted his life. Dad, would you like to introduce yourself?
Kevin Harkin: Hi, this is Kevin Harkin, Ainsley’s Dad, father of two. I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. I attended the State University of New York at Plattsburgh where I met my wife, and then came back to New York City and I have worked in finance for the last 27 years and currently work in the New York Stock Exchange.
AH: Okay, so the first question is, through stories, either you’ve heard or through your parents or that you know, now, can you describe your parents immigration journey?
KH:Well, both my parents started off, they know they grew up and were born in Ireland. My dad, when he was in his 20s, ended up moving with a couple of his brothers to London for work. Because it was obviously more working opportunities that he had in London that he would have had in his rural sort of setting in Ireland. After several years there, he decided to move to New York, he came over on the Queen Mary, which is a boat came and he landed in Ellis Island in 1956. My mom, she had somewhat a similar journey, she was again, same thing she was in rural Ireland, her family moved when she was a teenager, moved to Glasgow, Scotland. She spent a little bit of time over there. And then she did the same thing looking for job opportunities came here to the States in 1950 [pause, correction] 1958.
AH: So your parents both met here in the United States, correct?
KH: Yeah. So both my parents ended up meeting here in the States, there was a St. Patrick’s Day dance, there was an Irish Association [many immigrant groups had local associations that provided them with social activities and other supports] that was here in New York City, that they held the St. Patrick’s Day dance, and they ended up meeting there. And you know, a couple of years later got married.
AH: That’s so cool. So you’re a child, the youngest of three? Um, did you or your siblings looking back, do you think being a child of immigrants had impacted your childhood at all? Like, do you think you had a different cultural experience because of that then some say some of your friends?
KH: Oh, yeah, definitely think so. Our parents were, you know, sort of instilled in us, you know, that sort of the love of Ireland sort of before we were very much into Irish culture. And whether that was, you know, myself, I did some, I took Irish music lessons, my, my other family members took dance lessons. Like, that’s that kind of culture was always instilled in us, we always used to walk when we were really young. We used the Washington St. St. Patty’s Day Parade, every year, was actually the one day of the year that your parents would take you out of school to actually do something. So it was always something right. It was always, my parents were always, you know, up until their, you know, until their passing they both were very still very involved in the Irish community and with different associations that they worked with. So it was instilled in us from a very young age.
AH: Yeah, well that makes sense since that’s how they met too. So, um, how do you think of the way you were raised? Kind of, I’ve heard lots of stories about how your dad was such a hard worker and everything he did? How do you think that influenced you? Because I know you’ve talked a lot about how you started work very young also.
KH: Yeah. So it was always a very much a, you need to you want to, you want to instill a good work ethic for us. You know, I remember when I was, I was probably 17 or 18- I was probably it actually was about 18 when I got a job in New York City, and it was through a friend of his and it was just doing custodial work at the Flatiron building in Midtown, Manhattan. And the hours were just they were horrendous hours. They were like, four o’clock in the morning till two in the afternoon kind of hours. And after a first week of being there I’m like dad, I don’t think this is for me. My father said well, that’s you’ve got the job, you’re working those hours, that’s what you have to do. So it was his work ethic of like, you need to do your job your you have to go to work, you know, messing around, was still you know, very young to me. So it kind of carried me on to my work career myself.
AH: So yeah, like you just said, Do you think that impacted the job you chose and even like what college you ended up at?
KH: Well, I mean, for my mom and my dad both thought education was sort of the key to the United States, right? It was key to America, you could do whatever you want, right? Whereas my dad, they had very, very little education being in again, they both grew up in rural Ireland. So there was, you know, you had like, I would probably call it maybe, elementary education, maybe some secondary school sort of high school stuff. But that was about the extent of education there at that time. So for us, it was for me, my brother, my sister, education was a very important piece to that, and you know it, because you want and he, he was wanting you to do better than he had. I mean, he worked. I spent 26 years 27 years in the telephone union in New York City working for AT&T. So he wanted better, you know better opportunities for us. And you knew that was education.
AH: Makes sense. So after college, Did you always know you were gonna end up back working in New York City, just because it was basically home, like home base kind of?
KH: Yeah, um where we went to college was, it’s a, it’s a very small town in upstate New York, I was very near the Canadian borders, maybe about a half an hour from the Canadian border. And I knew what I wanted to do, whether it was finance or sort of statistical marketing, sort of aspects of stock, there weren’t that many opportunities for us up in that area to the North Country of New York. So we kind of wanted to come back, myself, and my wife who I met at school. You know, we thought our opportunities were best off being in New York City. And that’s because then you could, there was a lot more opportunities there.
AH: Yeah. Um, so did having children impact your job opportunities? Like, did you always know you wanted to stay working? Like I know mom didn’t choose to just stay at home? But, you knew that you always wanted to stay working? I guess the question.
KH: Well, I mean, some of it wasn’t necessarily by choice for, for Tracy to, for mom to sort of stop working. Both of us, we both worked in Manhattan. So when you were born, you know, we did that whole daycare thing. And even when your sister was born, we did the same thing. Both of you were in daycare, and leading up until I think you were basically in kindergarten, Mom was still working in the city. And around that time was, there was there were a lot of cutbacks in the magazine industry, and a lot of cutbacks at that point in time. So you know, that she sort of, you know, her job was made redundant. So she decided I will just stay at home, and I’ll take care of the kids and you work.
AH: Makes sense. So kind of going back in time. I know you were in New York City and saw the towers be hit on your way in, um, that, obviously, is a huge impact on every aspect of life for many people in the United States. But personally, how do you think that affected not only your day to day life, but just your job in general?
KH: Well, I mean, what I would say is I, for, especially for New Yorkers, and especially for myself, right, we used to come in from Brooklyn, or when I got married, we were living in Staten Island, New York, we would take a bus into Manhattan and I worked downtown during 911. And even prior to that, I always used to get off the bus just in front of the World Trade Center. And I would walk to my job and I would be walking away from the Trade Center, but I would walk past the subway stops for Cortland Street/World Trade Center. And there was always be the stream of people that would be coming out of those things. And I was like, I always thought I was going in the wrong direction. Right. Like that was always a thing of like those people work and get the treats and are like that was it was, you know, something, you know, that we wanted to be, especially in finance. And then obviously, you know, when 911 happened, like a lot of things changed. Between our job and mine, obviously my job, we were displaced for a very long time. We were three blocks from the Trade Center. So downtown Manhattan was basically a, you know, a no go zone for us probably about at least a year or two. So we were sort of transient workers in that time and place we would be upstate New York, like there was a Westchester office we were working in. Some of us were working in midtown Manhattan, some were working in Jersey, so we always kind of just were, we were bouncing around just because of the whole situation. So, but yeah, 911 was, you know, it had a deep impact, especially to the finance finance community, just because of everybody that worked at the Trade Center was, in was in finance, basically. Yeah.
AH: Um, so speaking of like, not just your job, like, have that changed, but did you feel like a sense of like, change like in the country, like just people wise not like through your job just seeing people around? Did you feel like there was a change with them?
KH: Oh, yeah, I mean, there were a lot of, I guess, physically, we saw a lot, a lot of difference, especially in Manhattan. You know, beforehand, you know, our first started working for a couple of buildings that we were in, you could just walk into a building, and you could just walk into an elevator, and then yours could go up to a floor, you probably would just have to have some sort of a security card or waive some piece of ID to get onto the floor but you could just wander into a building and wander into an elevator and nobody would have said anything. You know, after 911, you know, that all changed, it was you needed to be carded in, you had a scan to get onto an elevator, it was like the elevator keys that you would have to use there, just to get onto the elevator, then you’d have to get scanned to get it. And so it was always these levels of security that were added in. We still see that today. And which is, you know, it’s 22 years later, we still see that, you know, right now at the exchange, I have to show an ID to go through, put my bag through an x-ray machine, go through an x-ray machine, wave my card through three different turnstiles to actually get to my desk. Yeah, so security has always been a big change. But I think personally like to personally like, the days after 911, or even, or in the year after I, I think New York kind of as it always does, I think it always kind of, you know, bands together for the greater good. So to speak, you know, we don’t always get along with each other. But you know, we’re New Yorkers, and we always kind of like, you pick ourselves up, and we dust ourselves off when we get back to work. Right. And that’s, and that’s what we did. Yeah.
AH: Speaking of dusting yourself off, coming back from tragedy, I feel like COVID-19, although very different, and much later in time, has also had a huge impact on New York City as a whole and working in the business industry. How would you say that changed your job? Because I know, there’s still effects from that, even to this day?
KH: Oh, absolutely. Um, you know, one of the things that it was always a thing for us, even pre COVID was like, the ideas, especially after 911, this idea of sort of disaster recovery, it was always meant for like, in situations like 911, or if we had blackouts in Manhattan, once that kind of caused major disruptions, or Hurricane Sandy, all those things, we always had these disaster recovery programs. And it was always like, you know, we would like you to work from home, you know, like once a quarter or once a year or something like that, just to test out systems just to make sure we could do that. So we were kind of prepared for a little bit, but then it was just going into COVID. And everything that changed with COVID was the whole working from home, everybody at home at the same exact time was, you know, obviously put strains on systems and resources within companies. You know, especially now, we’re still seeing that effect two, three years on now. We’re still not five days a week back in an office. I don’t know many people that are five days in an office in Manhattan right now. Right now we, myself as part of management. We’re three days a week, but that’s all they ask us to do. My workers are one or two days a week. So the changes even in downtown Manhattan, just the atmosphere wise. I you know, probably within over the last year it has changed a little bit obviously there’s been more pickup of activity and more people being around. But yeah, there, there’s a big change in terms of like, we as part of being in finance, we were always tethered to our desk phones, right? I don’t have a desk phone anymore. I literally sit at a desk and I don’t have a phone anymore because nobody calls us, everybody contacts you now through emails and messaging and sort of electronically as opposed to picking up a phone and saying, “I have a question about something”. It’s all just electronic now. So that communication barrier is kind of just like it’s gone, right? Like that the talking to clients has kind of disappeared.
AH: Yeah, it kind of makes me think like, imagine if this happened 40 years ago, what would have happened? Like, you don’t have that backup of having a laptop at home having WiFi at home, being able to do it, having that ability to work at home, it would have been so much different.
KH: Oh, yeah, the changes even you know, within my 20 odd years in finance, I mean, we had go way back to there was a blackout. I would say it was probably like early 2000. Or, but we actually felt like 99. It was probably around that time, when we had a blackout in New York City. That was the beginnings of DSL lines and high, like not even high speed internet, this was like high speed dial up, because it was really, really, really slow. But that was the extent of it. And that’s 20 years ago, 25 years ago, probably when that happened, and to see where we are now to kind of go, okay, I can, you know, we can work where I needed to I could work wherever, you know, whether it was being here, our offices here in New York City, or from a satellite offices that our company has, yeah,
AH: It’s probably like, talking about the blackout. That must have been scary because you can’t have can’t call someone up and be like, “Hey, we’re like, where are you?: Like, you don’t know like, there’s a lot of unknowns there, which can be scary. Um, so, as you’ve said, You’ve been working for 27 years, same company, same job, how have things changed, just demographics wise, like, people you’re working with? Like, just even the job environment? How has that changed since you first started?
KH: When I first started, it was even for our company. I would say the demographics have shifted a lot for all sorts of positions within our company. You know, my team, like even from my teams that I’ve worked with, and I’ve managed over the years, I mean, it was all well, it’s all walks of life. Now. You know, it’s, you know, maybe when I first started, you know, you kind of had just people from New York City who you were working with, but you know, now it’s, you know, I’ve, I’ve had every sort of type of person who I could have worked with I you know, whether it was people who were from China and Hong Kong and somebody from India, and then somebody from, you know, the Dominican Republic or somebody from New York, somebody from Haiti or Jamaica, I’ve had really, the change of being how globally and part of us in New York City, I get that. But it’s a global sort of melting pot of people that I’ve always worked with, which was great. I love that.
AH: Yeah, it’s definitely cool to meet different kinds of people. Ah, I think that’s all. Thank you so much.
KH: You’re welcome.
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