Interesting perspective.
"From Tracy Brown, who comes from Martha's Vinyard:
I wrote a bit about it last night, but wanna expand a bit.
Media (especially right) holds up Martha's Vineyard as some rich liberal enclave. Hilarious. The really rich people on MV are not libs. LOL.
Ahem. So. My parents (mom and stepfather, his half because his dad died and left him $$) bought a pretty nice house there in roughly 1975. For about 70k. Big, nice house, built in 1800s, very cool. Whaling Era.
At the time the island was a "second home/summer home" economy. The small year round residents really struggled. It was absolutely a seasonal economy. No tourists but also no residents in the "nice" homes, they only came summer.
Notably, the gorgeous Victorian homes in Oak Bluffs was a black community since mid 19th century. And still is.
All grocery/supplies come by ferry. Off season the local A&P (back then) was not impressive.
In the 80s things went nuts. Families with small kids would buy house/land and Dad would work in Boston/apt and fly home to island for three days. This kind of helped local school stuff. But all real estate went insane. Even non-coastal.
Obviously quality at grocery store improved.
The Vineyard irrevocably changed. And adapted. No longer a seasonal retreat, now pretty populated year round. Long time residents everything from poor fishermen to the Taylor Family (singer James). One of my neighbors was Ruth Gordon, who rode her bicycle to the post office every day. Bumped into Walter Cronkite, David McCullough, Patricia Neal...and no one cared. They liked it there because literally no one cares who you are. (Pretty sure this is something Dershowitz doesn't understand). One of Jt's brothers was fire chief in Menemsha. Just regular folk. Another runs a B&B. *SHRUG*
So anyway. Point is, Island now year round community with big tourist season. Despite all those lovely estates everyone talks about (like obamas bought, etc).most people that live there are just folks. It's year round population is about 16k. Blows up tourist season (hated, but necessary). And yes, seasonal workers come in for tourist season. Lots of immigrants. Lots guys from south Boston too. Employers gotta provide them some kind of housing or they can't get them. It's ugly. It's mostly over after Labor Day.
Dumping 50 people who walked two miles from airport to community center (I can't imagine her first thought) was disgusting.
But these assh0les bought all the BS about the Vineyard being some rich elite snooty island. Well it isn't. It's diverse, multi financial, complicated small society. Who don't "fear" immigrants, since waves of them are seasonal workers.
And my peeps stepped up like crazy. The AP Spanish students from MVHS jumped in to translate. St. Andrews Edgartown coordinated feeding everyone. The community center was setting up beds etc and eventually had to tell people to stop donating.
These aren't necessarily "rich" people donating or helping,
They are just us.
Am proud of Martha's Vineyard."
"From Tracy Brown, who comes from Martha's Vinyard:
I wrote a bit about it last night, but wanna expand a bit.
Media (especially right) holds up Martha's Vineyard as some rich liberal enclave. Hilarious. The really rich people on MV are not libs. LOL.
Ahem. So. My parents (mom and stepfather, his half because his dad died and left him $$) bought a pretty nice house there in roughly 1975. For about 70k. Big, nice house, built in 1800s, very cool. Whaling Era.
At the time the island was a "second home/summer home" economy. The small year round residents really struggled. It was absolutely a seasonal economy. No tourists but also no residents in the "nice" homes, they only came summer.
Notably, the gorgeous Victorian homes in Oak Bluffs was a black community since mid 19th century. And still is.
All grocery/supplies come by ferry. Off season the local A&P (back then) was not impressive.
In the 80s things went nuts. Families with small kids would buy house/land and Dad would work in Boston/apt and fly home to island for three days. This kind of helped local school stuff. But all real estate went insane. Even non-coastal.
Obviously quality at grocery store improved.
The Vineyard irrevocably changed. And adapted. No longer a seasonal retreat, now pretty populated year round. Long time residents everything from poor fishermen to the Taylor Family (singer James). One of my neighbors was Ruth Gordon, who rode her bicycle to the post office every day. Bumped into Walter Cronkite, David McCullough, Patricia Neal...and no one cared. They liked it there because literally no one cares who you are. (Pretty sure this is something Dershowitz doesn't understand). One of Jt's brothers was fire chief in Menemsha. Just regular folk. Another runs a B&B. *SHRUG*
So anyway. Point is, Island now year round community with big tourist season. Despite all those lovely estates everyone talks about (like obamas bought, etc).most people that live there are just folks. It's year round population is about 16k. Blows up tourist season (hated, but necessary). And yes, seasonal workers come in for tourist season. Lots of immigrants. Lots guys from south Boston too. Employers gotta provide them some kind of housing or they can't get them. It's ugly. It's mostly over after Labor Day.
Dumping 50 people who walked two miles from airport to community center (I can't imagine her first thought) was disgusting.
But these assh0les bought all the BS about the Vineyard being some rich elite snooty island. Well it isn't. It's diverse, multi financial, complicated small society. Who don't "fear" immigrants, since waves of them are seasonal workers.
And my peeps stepped up like crazy. The AP Spanish students from MVHS jumped in to translate. St. Andrews Edgartown coordinated feeding everyone. The community center was setting up beds etc and eventually had to tell people to stop donating.
These aren't necessarily "rich" people donating or helping,
They are just us.
Am proud of Martha's Vineyard."
