More foreign workers chase dream on wealthy Nantucket
Poor immigrants find way among the rich

By Jenna Russell, Globe Staff | August 25, 2007

NANTUCKET -- As twilight fell gently across this prosperous island one recent evening, the garden of the public library looked like an updated scene from "The Great Gatsby." In front of the graceful old building known as the Atheneum, women in sundresses chatted with men in light-colored polo shirts. A kindly looking grandfather watched a tow-headed toddler climb up and down the steps.

Everyone in sight was white; everyone spoke English.

But a different scene was unfolding inside, in a pair of basement meeting rooms where another group of islanders practiced speaking English at free classes. They were landscapers, nannies, and housecleaners from distant lands such as El Salvador, Thailand, and Bulgaria who represent the fastest-growing population on Nantucket: foreign workers who flock here to meet a seemingly insatiable demand for labor.

It is an unlikely spot to chase the American dream: a rural island 30 miles offshore, famous as a summer retreat for the rich and powerful, where the median house price tops $1 million, gas costs almost $4 a gallon, and a cheeseburger at one bistro sells for $19.

A chasm separates most foreign workers on Nantucket from their moneyed neighbors. Many immigrants work two jobs, ride bicycles to get around, and live two to a room to cut costs. Many of those who employ them inhabit sprawling mansions, travel by private jet and yacht, and do not work.

For well-off families who summer on the island, shopping for clothes might mean a trip to Lilly Pulitzer, where a man's cotton blazer in a pink-and-green hibiscus pattern costs $595.

Some immigrants find their clothes at the dump.

"Rich people leave things there, all free," said Maria Peña, a legal immigrant from El Salvador who runs a housecleaning business. "We can't buy clothes here -- they're beautiful, but so expensive -- so everyone goes there. That is our place."

But the immigrants say the opportunities to make money and build better lives are worth the struggle to adjust to life in this privileged enclave.

In interviews, foreign workers voiced little resentment of the leisure and luxury that surrounds them. If anything, they say, the excess provides inspiration.

"Here, you sit next to a multimillionaire and you're treated the same," said a 34-year-old man from Ireland who was drinking beer at The Muse, an island nightclub, and declined to give his name because he is in the United States without proper immigration documents. "There are a lot of success stories of people who came here with nothing."

Town officials say Spanish-speakers from Mexico and Central America have been the largest group of newcomers, followed by eastern Europeans, especially Bulgarians, and Jamaicans.

No one knows how many foreign workers are on the island, but Town Clerk Catherine Stover said the population of Nantucket, estimated by the US Census Bureau in 2006 to be about 10,000, is probably closer to 16,000. Stover does not know how much of the uncounted population is made up of immigrants, but she says it includes students with short-term visas, older laborers who come for months each year with work visas, and legal and illegal immigrants who have relocated permanently.

The island has struggled to solve problems that have blossomed alongside diversity: language barriers, cultural misunderstandings, and overcrowded dwellings, the result of groups of immigrants who live together to afford costly rents on the island.

In June, Nantucket police and federal agents arrested 18 immigrants in an early morning raid that targeted foreigners with criminal records and those who had ignored deportation orders.

The crackdown has not changed the positive view many islanders take of the new arrivals. They say the newcomers provide labor that is vital for the isolated island and have infused the place with cultural vibrancy. Stories of immigrants who have started their own businesses and bought houses are savored by natives and newcomers.

More immigrants are learning English. An advanced course was added to the beginner and intermediate classes at the Atheneum this summer, and 60 to 70 volunteer tutors work one on one with students every week, said Tharon Dunn, a leader of the literacy program.

Foreign workers' presence on the island has grown more visible. The Brazil Mini Mart sits at a busy intersection near Brant Point Lighthouse, its wooden sign shaped like a whale.

Foreign players dominate the island's adult soccer league, and on Thursday nights, when a disc jockey at The Muse spins Latin music, Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking patrons line up at the door, showing bouncers their passports during ID checks at the door.

The mass arrival of foreign workers on Nantucket, which began in the mid-1980s, came as an economic boom fueled demand for labor year-round. At the same time, the number of American college students seeking summer jobs on the island fell into decline.

The first surge was from Ireland, said town officials and business leaders. Job seekers from Eastern Europe and the Caribbean followed in the 1990s. More recently, immigrants from Mexico and central America have grown in number.

Housing remains the greatest barrier to their success. Some foreign workers live in housing provided by their employers, but most fend for themselves.

On Essex Street, a curving road in a dense neighborhood near the island's center, many immigrants live in tidy, gray-shingled duplexes built close together.

Some house as many as 18 people in four bedrooms, said Rose Altunsacan, a legal immigrant from Brazil who moved here from Florida five years ago.

"A lot of people, when they first come, they get a shock," said Altunsacan, who runs a small housecleaning business. She pays $2,800 a month to rent a bright, airy duplex on Essex Street, which she shares with her husband, a tiler.

Richard Ray, director of Nantucket's Health Department, tries to enforce housing rules, which limit how many people can use one septic system or inhabit a certain-sized room, but said his job is complicated by the cultural gap between Nantucket and the places workers come from.

"This has been their way of life in their country of origin, so to convince them you can't have nine or 12 people in a three-bedroom house is difficult," he said.

Some immigrants say they are saving money to buy a home in their own country. Many send money to their families.

Dionee Wilson, 40, a visa holder from Jamaica, works 40 hours a week at Bartlett's Farm, 15 or 20 more at a pizza shop downtown, and sends about one-third of what she earns to Jamaica to support her parents, who do not work, and her 13-year-old son.

Until she goes home in December, Wilson and her son will keep in touch by phone.

"It's hard to be away from him," she said during a break from making salads behind the farm's deli counter. "But there are not a lot of jobs there, and the pay is low."

Among foreign workers, competition for jobs is intense. The going rate for cleaning houses is $25 per hour, but Altunsacan said she has lost jobs to other immigrants who are working illegally and offer to clean for less.

Peña said she feels at home on the island she loves dearly, and she laughs at the "very Spanish" name she gave her daughter, Chelsea. But the simplest things about life on Nantucket can still cause amazement.

In some of the big houses she cleans, there are just two people, and "all those rooms," she said.

She expressed no envy of the size of the houses. But she marveled at the orderly calm of such a life.

"If they put something down in the house, it stays there, and nobody takes it," she said.

Jenna Russell can be reached at jrussell@globe.com.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.

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