It turns out I am a through and through American, and pretty deeply rooted at that. My mother, born Jane Claire Phaup, is part of a family that has been here for centuries. In 1756, Benjamin Phaup sailed from Scotland to the New World, more specifically Jamestown, Virginia. He managed to catch this ride to America amid a huge influx of fellow Protestant-Scotch by becoming an indentured servant, and started his life in a very new world. Since the country was so young, America was a country of immigrants. It held the ideals and appeal that still linger today: a country filled with opportunity and void of religious persecution.
The McCarthys, from left to right: my father Joe, my grandmother Kitty, uncle Tim, aunt Maureen, and uncle Brian
On my father’s side, however, the immigration experience is much more recent. My father’s parents, Catherine O’Shea and Timothy McCarthy, immigrated to America in 1950. They had grown up a quarter-mile away from each other their whole lives, on a small rural island named Valentia, County Kerry, Ireland. The island is no more than seven miles long and two miles wide, and is primarily a farming island. Catherine was born in 1914 and Timothy in 1919.
In Valentia, jobs were scarce and opportunities even scarcer. They sailed across the Atlantic and arrived in Hoboken, NJ, in 1950. There, they were separated; my grandfather was taken to Long Island to live and work for his brother Michael, and my grandmother was taken to Bridgeport, CT, to live with her two sisters Mary and Hanoriah. Within a year, my grandparents were married and they moved to Brooklyn. They had five children, one of which is the reason I am here today. My father is shown in the picture above. He’s the one on the far left.
