You always have to ask yourself what agenda those limousine liberals are trying to advance for each story. I can only guess that in this case it’s in response to the devastating anti-diversity study the Globe wrote about a few weeks ago. The bottom line of that study is that the more diverse a community is the worse off it is. On every meaningful measure, diversity harms communities.
The Globe can’t leave that notion unchallenged.
As luck would have it, there is a magical community where immigrants and natives alike live in perfect harmony. Perfect harmony with a liberal dose of white guilt, that is. Although nothing those plucky immigrants can’t overcome.
That place is Nantucket. A place Stocky is very familiar with. Let’s take a look at the article on Nantucket. There’s plenty of ommisions and mischaracterizations.
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.
Immediately, The Globe misses the most important aspect of life on Nantucket. Those “moneyed neigbors” are only around for at most a few months in the summer. Most are there for only a few weeks. The “locals”, the people who live there year round also ride bikes to get around (lots of bike paths on the island) and while they don’t live 2 to a room themselves, they are likely to have at one time or another rented a room to someone in order to make ends meet. And they have a name for somone who works 2 jobs. Lazy. Most locals bust their ass during the “season” to make a buck any way they can.
Those “immigrants” also tend to disappear at the end of the season. National Politicians take note: When the jobs leave, so do the illegals. No deportation required. Back to the story:
Many of those who employ them inhabit sprawling mansions, travel by private jet and yacht, and do not work.
Well, that describes John Kerry to a T. I’ll give them that.
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.
Images of peasants rummaging through the squalor of a dump on the outskirts of Mexico City or some other third world hell hole come to mind. Not so on Nantucket.
The Dump. Just off Madaket road. Like a lot of dumps it has an area where people leave things others might want. It is even staffed by a town employee. It’s “Official” name is the Take it or leave it shop. It’s unofficial name is The Madaket Mall. Lots of good stuff there. While you wouldn’t expect to find John Kerry checking out the offerings(unless he was between heiresses), there’s no shame in picking up an item or 2 from the Madaket Mall.
Besides, Amazon.com ships for free to Nantucket just like anywhere else. It’s not like you are forced to pay Island prices.
But enough with the white guilt. Nantucket is a magical place where immigrants and locals live in perfect harmony. Let’s get on with the “narrative”.
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.”
“Without proper immigration documents” …. hmmmm Stocky isn’t sure but that could make him ILL fucking EGAL. Maybe not though. If he were I’m sure the Globe would point that out.
True enough about those success stories though. If you’re willing to work and make sacrifices there is money to be made on Nantucket.
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.
Gee, a regular Horatio Alger story there. Brazilian immigrant starts own business and lives happily ever after. Well, not exactly. The Globe left out a few details about the Brazil Mini Mart. The landlord wanted to expand the building and rent it out to new businesses no doubt in order to attract higher rents. When word got out that the Landlord did not intend to renew the lease for the Brazil Mini Mart, the plucky immigrant owner showed just how much she’s assimilated into the American culture by screaming Racism. It now appears that this property owner has a tennant for life. Playing the Race Card trumps all.
Foreign players dominate the island’s adult soccer league
That is certainly true. One small detail about that soccer league the Globe left out. 2 weeks before the Globe ran the story, the league was shut down. Not because of the piles of trash left on the sidelines after every game but because of a fight, a knife and a gun all coming together during a game between 2 Jaimaican teams. Yup, it’s just a swell time at those soccer games.
Where do all these immigrants live? Now we’re getting to the real impact of illegals on the Island. Even the Globe has a difficult time sugar coating this:
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.
Tidy??? A quick drive down Essex St will bring many adjectives to mind. Tidy is not one of them.
18 people in 1 house??? That’s the one with only 10-12 vehicles jammed in and around it.
The other houses obviously contain more people.
What can be done about this? Apparently, not much.
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.
Where Stocky comes from, robbing banks is considered a way of life. I bet the Nantucket authorities wouldn’t waste a lot of time trying to “convince” me to stop robbing banks. WTF is Richard Ray smoking?
But lets get back to the narrative. All is wonderful for the immigrants on Nantucket. Or is it?
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.
Let Stocky translate that Globespeak for you. Even the immigrants are bitching about the illegal immigrants.
Sorry to digress. Let’s get back to the narrative and finish this story on an upbeat note.
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.
Nice. Stocky has a warm and fuzzy feeling now. Do you? This story is a Jenna Russell creation. She has made Stocky’s “list”. On her way to her own category maybe.
