That Was Then, This Is Now

by Anonymous

My story begins in 1988. The new wave of mass emigration from Ireland in the 1980s was a different animal altogether. Emigration was most concentrated at two ends of the class/education/wealth spectrum. Unskilled and semi-skilled workers were still leaving in droves and I was one of them.

 “The world is your oyster”, my mammy said. I had just been for a second interview as a trainee manager within the hotel industry and had been successfully. Out of the 350 people from around Ireland who applied for the job only 35 people were selected and I was one of them. I couldn’t believe it I had got the job. My whole family were so excited. I was going to Las Vegas. Although I was very excited myself, I was also a bit apprehensive as I had never been outside Ireland before and I could sense from my mam and dad, while they were happy for me they were nervous about the idea too. But they knew that opportunities like this only came once in a life time. Not only did I have a very good relationship with my parents but I was also daddy’s little girl out of the 5 children my daddy doted on me the most.

The day came for me to set off on my adventure and all my family came to the airport to see me off. I remember in particular my dad holding me in an embrace so tight I thought I was going to faint. “You take care now and be safe I love you Catherine”, he said.  My heart was breaking and I cried tears of joy and sadness.

I arrived in Las Vegas dumb struck. The place was amazing everywhere was opened 24 hours, nowhere shut. The strip at night was lit up like a great big disco ball it was fantastic. After two weeks of orientation and training we were all given our shifts to work in the Las Vegas Hilton Hotel. I had made a lot of friends and when we had time off we would go out and about exploring all the different casinos in Las Vegas. It was all so incredible and wonderful. Life couldn’t have been better!

Then one night while a few friends and I were out in a bar having a few drinks and listening to the band that was playing. I noticed the guy that was playing the saxophone; he was so handsome all my friends thought so too. We both exchanged glances and before the end of the night we were laughing and talking about everything and anything, we hit it off real well his name was Kenny. Life had just got better!

Everything was fantastic I and Kenny were going strong and I had told my parents about him too. They were so happy for me especially my daddy and he said that he couldn’t wait to meet him. My work visa had finished and I had to return home to Ireland. I was devastated on having to leave Kenny and he felt the same way too. We decided that we would have a long distance relationship as neither of us wanted to be without the other. Kenny had promised to come to Ireland to visit and I had promised that I would also go back to America on holidays.

After lots of tears and hugs I took out some of the photos I had taken and was showing them to my family. Then within that one second of having my life complete my whole world was turned upside down “Jeysus he’s black” my sister shouted. My dad grabbed the photo and I seen the look of disgust and disappointment in his face as he inspected it. “No Niger will ever step foot in my home and I will certainly not allow any daughter of mine to be seen with one” and he stomped out of the room. Silence fell around the room. My mother asked why I had not told them and I said that I didn’t think that it was relevant. I loved him no matter of his colour race or religion. And I was going to continue to be with him

The day came for Kenny to arrive. I met him at the airport and the love that we had for each other was even stronger than before. He knew that there was something wrong and asked me what was bothering me. The gut feeling I had in my stomach was wrenching I felt like I was going to vomit I broke down in tears “my father is racist” I said. I had never known this before and I had never even spoken the word before, it was all too much. “Don’t worry darling we will stay in a hotel”, Kenny said, because we had decided initially to stay with my parents. When I told my father he told me that if I stayed with him in the hotel that I was not welcome in this house again.

Having to choose between the two men in my life that I loved the most was the most difficult thing I had to do. I had never thought before now, that love could be so difficult, hard unfair and racist. I naively thought that love was equal and just among all.

We spent the next two weeks in a hotel in Dublin and Kenny did not meet any of my family as my father had forbidden it. Although I brushed this aside for the sake of Kenny there were many other incidents that occurred during his visit to Ireland that made me realise how negative people were on accepting people from other countries, and cultures into their society.

Besides all the looks and slide remarks that we got when we were out together it didn’t have any hindrance on our love for one another. One example of theses was when we were walking down O’ Connell street and two white Irish lads made a comment, saying” isn’t your own good enough for you love” my reply was “well not if there like you ignorant f….”. I was not only shocked at their racist remarks but with my own reply as I would never have talked in that way to anyone. My blood was boiling, I was outraged not only because of what the two lads had said but also because of the feelings I felt towards them I didn’t hate those two lads but I certainly didn’t like them either. This was not my character I couldn’t understand it. I’d never had such bad feelings towards anyone in my life before. 

Kenny told me although he had experienced racism before and the majority of the time it didn’t bother him he said that he felt like he was living in a time warp and that Ireland had a long way to go before we could accept that all people are the same no matter what colour, race or religion they are. That was 25 years ago and although our relationship ended because we lived so far away from each other, we still remained friends.

Kenny was the first black person I had ever met. Back in Ireland in the 1980s if you walked down O’Connell street and seen a Chinese, Japanese or black person (which was quite rare) you automatically thought that they were on holidays. Now over 500,000 foreign nationals are calling Ireland home. We have come a long way but we still have a long way to go. Even though we live in a society were multiculturalism, globalisation and cultural diversity is more customary, there will always be those slide remarks, presumptions and in cases violent behaviours that need to be overcome.

As for my father, he is now more aware of not how different people are but how different we can be in realising that we are all the same no matter of race, creed or colour.