"I MEAN, WHY COME HERE NOW?"
(Originally published in the Western People on 2024-06-04)
She tilted her head sideways, studying me intently. "I mean, why come here now? It's terrible... and if he gets elected again, I... I don't know..." A vibrant older Jewish woman, raised in the Bronx within a theatrical Jewish family, she embodied the no-nonsense, practical, and generous spirit of a New Yorker. We originally met in Los Angeles — becoming fast friends when I declined to rent her apartment but became lost in an hour conversation about old Hollywood films (my acting career could not then afford anything bar the cluttered living room of a low-rent Ethiopian prince — but that’s another story).
Since my return to my native county Mayo a decade ago, we have had many Zoom chats. My friend had also moved back home to New York, seeking a better life. But before the 2020 election, she had warned me, "30% of the country is having a nervous breakdown - you cannot imagine what people I've known for years, always thought sane and smart, believe right now." In the weeks leading up to the January 6th attack on the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., she confided that she and her friends were researching dual passports and residency requirements in other countries. Her doctor even contemplated moving to New Zealand due to the demand for doctors, while her New York friends with country houses had relocated upstate. However, Biden had won, despite the unprecedented — if inept – MAGA insurrection, and had calmed her liberal senses for a time.
Yet, slowly, inevitably, Trump was back, without any meaningful Republican opposition he effectively walked-over the Republican primaries before they started, setting the stage for a rematch with Joe Biden. My friend’s anxiety is palpable once more, exacerbated by the looming threat of a second, potentially more vindictive, term for twice-impeached former president. In Donald Trump's own words, "I will be a dictator on day one." Few believe day two would be any different, and many seem unfazed by this prospect.
Nonetheless, once my wife and I arrived at JFK airport with Green Cards in hand, my old friend expressed her happiness at our presence, even as she was puzzled why we would move to America now. During our stay in her sister's cosy apartment in the not-so-cosy Bronx, near Yankee Stadium, our hosts told us of the changes in this once predominantly Irish area. As Harlem becomes more expensive, the poorer population move north, transforming the Bronx into the poorest borough in New York, plagued by high crime rates and endemic poverty. Our pale Mayo skin often draws attention from neighbourhood residents, overwhelmingly Black and Hispanic, though rarely with concern as the locals are generally friendly and polite. "We were thinking you ain't from around here," two older Black women chuckled as my wife mentioned she was from Ukraine while we all rode the escalator at the local subway station, "you are very pretty”. My own presence garnered little more attention than a friendly warning to take care of her. In some respects, we could have been still in Dublin…
We had anticipated encountering the stereotypical "Hey! I'm walking here!" attitude of brusque New Yorkers, but a former New York Times journalist I met explained that the crowded streets, packed subways, and cramped shops necessitated courtesy, rather than brusqueness, as a social lubricant in a city of some eight million people.
My journalist friend, speaks proudly of his Irish forbears, while recounting the changes in the city, in sentiments echoed by many we speak with. Rising rents, grocery prices, and restaurant bills are accompanied by a shift in the city's character, particularly as his native Brooklyn gentrified, making it increasingly unaffordable. Acquaintances lament that post-Covid New York is not the same as before, citing concerns about safety and a general feeling of societal loss – even as official statistics suggest otherwise. Particularly, riding the subway is often a nervous route for many, while becoming a refuge for mentally unwell (and unpredictable) randomers, fare jumpers, pan-handlers and many poor Spanish-speaking sellers of candy. I was shocked to find the National Guard supporting the police in several stations, even as it remains the most effective way of getting around the city.
As New York attracts more refugees and immigrants, the housing crisis gets worse, exacerbating the already soaring living costs. My wife and I were astounded to find everyday items in Bronx shops, serving the poorest in New York, often at double or more the prices for staple foods, stocked in our old Tesco supermarket at home in Ballina. The larger stores downtown were no better. Some blamed recent bail laws reforms and lenient sentencing to the new flagrancy of shoplifting and robberies. Certainly rampant shoplifting has led to security measures such as the locking up toothpaste and detergents behind glass cases, while even our local Target shop closed its self-service stations due to theft. One sales assistant who liberated a tube of Crest toothpaste for me, quipped that they were locking up the products but not the people stealing them. I wondered about the extra cost of employing guys like him to just open shelves on request…
Joe Biden and the Democrats are campaigning on delivering economic recovery and controlling inflation, emphasizing their role in safeguarding American democracy from Donald Trump and the far-right Republicans. However, many New York residents express disillusionment or apathy towards the government, potentially posing a challenge to the Biden campaign come November. While the liberal MSNBC cable channel hosts may wonder how people don’t seem to accept or know that the Biden administration curbed inflation and had overseen ‘full’ employment, they don’t seem to get that it matters little to people that overpriced rents, utilities and groceries have stopped rising. It matters that their net pay didn’t rise as fast, or at all.
While New York State is safely Democrat, Trump and the Republicans can capitalise on this social disaffection elsewhere in swing-states, where similar issues of the migrant crisis and cost of living, erodes Biden's support, particularly if discontent with the current administration persists. As one New Yorker quipped to me while we both witnessed police deftly apprehending a knife-wielding man on the subway platform one evening, "We ain't in Kansas anymore". I must admit that in between the shouting, my Jewish friend’s question did briefly flash though my head — why did I come here?