Heart pounding, she ducked under her seat.
A native New Yorker, she isnt easily rattled, but now she could see people running around her.
The police were on the platform.
Kenya, a nanny in New York, on her daily commute
None stopped her to ask what had happened.
Kenya didnt stick around to volunteer.
After she gathered herself, she did what most of us would: She made a phone call.
Kenya in her home in Brooklyn
Not to a friend.
Kenya in her home in Brooklyn
Im like, Oh my God, this just happened to me.
Im so shaken up, she remembers.
“I’m constantly looking for work,” says Kenya. “It’s exhausting.”
And indeed, both were understanding when she told them.
Worried for her too.
When they offered to cover an Uber for her to get to work that morning, she accepted.
Delores in her home in Brooklyn
But she was back on the train just over 24 hours later, stomach churning.
What choice did she have?
There is no work-from-home option for the over 14,000 people in New York City who work as nannies.
Delores on her daily commute
She has bills, rent, groceries to pay for.
She cant afford a mental health day.
At first, caregiving wasnt a career Kenya felt called to.
She started working at 16, picking up a series of jobs.
She worked at a summer program for kids.
She worked at McDonalds.
For Kenya, this presidential election is a “no-brainer.”
She went to department stores for a spell.
She dabbled in after-school pickup.
She worked as a bank teller.
Kenya gets her morning coffee before work.
She landed on childcare without meaning to.
In fact, she had once wanted to be a police officer.
When she started caring for children, she hadnt planned to stick it out.
“We are left out of everything that they do,” Delores says of both political parties.
But she loved it.
In that sense, it isnt a surprise that she found this line of work.
The downsides are of course obvious: The work can be strenuous and tends not to be well paid.
“We need a president who is for the people,” says Delores.
For some it isunprotected, and abuses can proliferate.
Even with her years of experience, Kenya has to hustle.
She struggles to save as shed like to.
I meet some nannies and I tell them, I dont think this is for you.
Not the work, not the conditions under which most low-income women do it.
“Im constantly looking for work, says Kenya.
I live paycheck to paycheck, Kenya says.
Around 85% of care workers overall are women; closer to 95% of child carers are.
But theres reason to believe the status quo is starting to change.
After decades of silence and invisibility, care workers are making themselves known.
It gives me so much joy working with the kids, watching their development.
Of course, shared concerns do not necessarily mean shared votes.
Meanwhile, Harris has made health careand the care economy generallya pillar of her pitch to voters.
Republicans in the Senate blocked an expanded child tax credit, which would have helped millions of low-income families.
Her waking hours are spent preparing for work, commuting to work, working, and returning home.
When shes on the job, shes often on her hands and knees.
Her employer is pregnant, which means Delores will soon be caring for two children instead of one.
One is easier, of course, but two doesnt faze her.
Three times, shes cared for twins.
Delores, 60, grew up in Jamaica.
She emigrated in her 20s, finding work on the Cayman Islands and then later in Florida.
She visited New York not intending to find a new place to live, but she fell hard.
It was exciting, with all the shopping and the stores.
Im like, I like this, she remembers.
Everybodys moving at a faster pace, not laid back and all of that.
She has been here ever since.
Delores is no longer married, but she was when she first moved to the States.
I had someone capable taking care of them, Delores says.
It helped that her two kids were then old enough to talk to her on the phone and communicate.
But yes, she adds, after a pause.
She gave advice, she counseled them, she was clear about her expectations for them.
She watched them grow up, albeit from a distance.
Now one lives not too far from her in New York.
The other is in England.
Delores on her daily commute
It was a friend in New York who introduced her to care work.
It gives me so much joy working with the kids, watching their development, she says.
I love the kids, and the kids love me.
I think Im just a kid person.
Still, her first jobs were disorienting.
Shed never worked in a strangers house before.
She had no idea what to expect or what she could ask for.
Twice she took live-in gigs but started to feel claustrophobic.
In the beginning she took what was offered to her.
Before long she learned what she could demand.
She became someone who stands up for herself, she explains.
And if theres something I think is out of bounds, I will speak up.
She still talks to the children.
Were almost like family, she says.
The work gives her purpose.
The kids charm her.
But that kind of satisfaction doesnt translate into better wages.
Delores has lived in the same apartment since 1998, decorating it to her exact specifications.
Last year her landlord raised her rent.
She has watched her electric bill go up.
At the laundromat she gets charged double what she used to for a plastic bag.
she repeats, for emphasis.
Most nannies earn much much less.
Yet without them, the most powerful parents in New York could not function.
Money is Kenyas greatest worry.
Since the pandemic she has struggled to find a full-time, permanent job.
She knows other nannies share her frustration.
Thats the situation Im in.
Im constantly looking for work, she says.
She has about eight weeks to find something new and an undesirable back-up plan if she cannot.
Shes too responsible for this.
For Kenya, this presidential election is a no-brainer.
Recently she interviewed for a job for 40 hours a week.
Kenya has more than two decades of experience.
At CGNA she teaches a class on negotiations and tells her students to know their limits.
She took her own advice.
She didnt take the job.
Shes come uncomfortably close.
Not long ago Kenya had to ask for a cash advance.
She winces when she talks about it now.
Its not pleasant, she says.
But I was in a bind.
Her bosses didnt hesitate.
They gave her the money.
She handled the bill.
But its still not, she pauses to take a breath.
Its even hard to talk about right now.
What do the politicians she sees on TV know of her existence?
Kenya gets her morning coffee before work.
And yet this presidential election is a no-brainer, as she puts it.
She has watched Donald Trump bluster and lie.
She followed his criminal trial and took note of his convictions.
She looked at her options; she chose the one she felt she could live with.
She has learned to take a closer look at local races.
Its the little elections that are the important ones, she says.
Those are the candidates who know what her neighborhood is like.
When she heard gunshots, perhaps some of them heard them too.
How much longer can Kenya do this?
The scramble, the drop-offs, the commute?
She doesnt know the answer.
The profession takes a toll on your body, she says.
My knees are horrible because theres a lot of bending.
Sometimes, Im down on the floor and I think, How am I getting up from here?
In the meantime, both of her roommates have full-time work.
One is also a nanny but lucked into a regular gig.
Her nephew, who is in his 20s, works as a school aide.
She hates feeling like shes the one dragging them down.
All three would like to find a bigger place, but the market is impossible.
She thinks about leaving New York all the time, she tells me.
But where would she go?
Shes not a news junkie, but she does like to be informed.
We are left out of everything that they do, she says.
We are never included.
Im not like that.
We are left out of everything that they do, Delores says of both political parties.
In the run-up to the first presidential debate, she tells me she has mixed feelings about the election.
Shes a registered Democrat but isnt sure if she wants to vote at all.
She likes the plans Democrats have put forward for care workers.
But as a Christian, she prefers the Republican stance on abortion.
Everyone has their different thing, she says.
So I am thinking.
For the most part, what she has been thinking is that she doesnt like her choices.
She will not vote for Donald Trump.
She is after all an immigrant and remembers what it was like to arrive here without much.
After becoming a citizen she cast her first ballot for Barack Obama.
She isnt sure she wants to commit.
One thing that I would like, she says, is if we had younger people running.
Three weeks latershe gets her wish.
One elite politician, swapped for another.
Except when she answers the phone, she doesnt sound jaded at all.
In fact, she sounds elated.
I am buzzing with excitement, she says.
She knows that no policies have shifted and no new commitments have been made.
Harris is even more explicit in her pro-choice rhetoric than Joe Biden was.
Delores waves all that off.
Its a new voice!
she trills, using a new voice herself.
Its a more powerful voice.
Fresh blood is on the platform!
We need a president who is for the people, says Delores.
Hell, shedonatedto the campaign and urged her friends to vote.
The rent is still too high.
Her bills add up.
The laundromat continues to charge 50 cents for a plastic bag.
And even so, she feels a new, undeniable optimism.
We are struggling, she says.
We need a president who is for the people.
Shebelieves Harriscan be that person.
Delores hopes she will remember, if she wins, the kind of people who powered her bid.
It moves her to see a Black woman on the top of the ticket.
She has lived in America for decades, and she knows the opportunities it has provided.
But pride is a newer sensation.
Still, for an unseen population,representationisnt an empty buzzword.
Its giving other women a chance to become great, Delores says, marveling.
It means that nobody is limited.
