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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Weekend Read: Living Well (in Martha’s Vineyard) Is the Best Revenge

Weekend Read: Living Well (in Martha’s Vineyard) Is the Best Revenge

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Only a handful of yet-to-be-certified refugees, but still a win for these lucky few. From the NYTimes, “How Migrants Flown to Martha’s Vineyard Came to Call It Home” [gift link]:

… When Ms. Cauro fled Venezuela last summer, she never imagined that one day she would be working and living on a wealthy island south of Cape Cod, surrounded by boats and mansions of the kind she had seen only in the movies.

It has been nine months since the government of Florida, under the direction of Gov. Ron DeSantis, chartered two flights from Texas that picked up Ms. Cauro and 48 other newly arrived migrants and dropped them off on Martha’s Vineyard, a liberal enclave that until then had little firsthand experience with the surge in migration on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The political move — repeated this month, when Florida officials arranged two more flights of migrants from Texas, this time bound for California — was an attempt to force Democratic leaders many miles away to deal with a surge in migration that has affected states along the border. The trips left many of the Venezuelans confused and alarmed. Some were told they were headed for Boston or Seattle, where there would be plentiful jobs, assistance and housing.

But neither was the destination; it was Martha’s Vineyard, and it was the end of the busy summer season when vacationers begin retreating home to offices and schools. There were no jobs and no places for them to stay. Volunteers put the new arrivals up at a local church and arranged for transportation.

Within days, most of the migrants were gone, headed for other parts of Massachusetts and places like New York, Washington and Michigan — places better equipped than a small island to settle people who had arrived with little or nothing of their own.

As it turned out, though, not all of them left.

Ms. Cauro is one of at least four migrants who have quietly stayed behind on the island, forming bonds with a community that opened what doors it could. Ms. Cauro, 25, is working as a landscaper. Her brother, Daniel, 29, and her cousin, Eliud Aguilar, 28, found jobs in painting and roofing.

They first stayed in the homes of Martha’s Vineyard residents who invited them in, and then began earning enough money for a house of their own, with the four of them currently chipping in $1,000 a month each for a two-bedroom house. They got bicycles to ride around town…

Many of the 49 migrants who were flown to Martha’s Vineyard are still struggling. Some have not yet obtained work permits, and many are still living in shelters, unable to afford permanent housing.

One of them, a 42-year-old man named Wilson, who had fled Venezuela after deserting an armed group there, is living in a shelter in a Boston suburb. He was hoping to open a restaurant or a remodeling business, but for now is working odd jobs and “doing whatever I can,” he said.

“We were 49 migrants, and we have 49 different stories,” he said. “I want to reach the American dream like everyone else.”…

Life in “La Isla,” as the migrants call it, feels a lot like the new life they had imagined. But getting there was a tremendous challenge. Ms. Cauro and her family members, facing an oppressive government and economic collapse in Venezuela, had set out for the United States a month before reaching the border.

Her brother, Daniel, had left behind a wife and two children, Daniela, 8, and Reynaldo, 2. They traversed the Darien Gap, a treacherous strip of jungle that connects South and Central America. In Mexico, the group jumped on La Bestia, a network of cargo trains headed north where many migrants have lost their limbs and even their lives…

Reader Interactions

47Comments

  1. 1.

    Alison Rose

    Using these people like political footballs to OWN TEH LIBS!!! is so fucking repugnant. DeSantis really wanted to make it crystal clear that he doesn’t view anyone different from himself as human.

  2. 2.

    Suzanne

    “I did not even know where Martha’s Vineyard was. And now I feel welcomed by everybody here. I’m working, making friends and this is home for me now.”

    This is the kind of thing that I read and I think a real, genuine, un-ironic, totally wholesome America, fuck yeah.

  3. 3.

    JPL

    It’s a nice story, and you know who will never be accepted among the island residents?

  7. 7.

    Jeffro

    Great story!

    Btw a story like this one makes Dan Balz’s sad/weird/you be the judge attempt here all the more sad, and weird: What do Ron DeSantis and Barack Obama have in common?

    (worth it just to read the WaPo reader replies, LOL)

    Dan, think about taking a year or two or all of them off, please.

    Campaign analogies are imperfect, but at the start of this year, the 2024 Republican race loosely resembled the Democratic nominating contest in 2008. When that campaign took shape in early 2007, Hillary Clinton was the clear favorite, Obama was a rising star and the rest of the field was struggling to gain traction. This year, Trump, as a former president, entered with the most support by far. DeSantis, the Florida governor, began as the hot newcomer, and the nine other Republican candidates were (and are) looking for an opening.

    At the start in 2007, Clinton carried the best brand in the Democratic Party. Plus, she had national experience through eight years as first lady and half a dozen as a U.S. senator from New York. She also had vulnerabilities.

    Although there are similarities in the way their candidacies took shape, DeSantis is no Obama. Obama had a positive message, an appeal to better angels (that he was never able fully to achieve in office). DeSantis’s message is the opposite, an appeal with edge and grievance, a call to defeat everything “woke” (although the concept is ill-defined), a pledge to dismantle the federal bureaucracy. This is partly an echo of Trump, and DeSantis is betting that Republican voters want to hear it.

    Compare that with the current Republican contest. Trump is certainly dominant but also has vulnerabilities. For many Republicans, he is a politician with deep character flaws who lacks seriousness as a leader, who has promulgated lies about the 2020 election and has a vindictive streak. Those Republicans want their party to move on from the Trump era.

    Trump has been indicted in two criminal cases — a state case in New York for allegedly falsifying business records and a federal case by the Justice Department for allegedly mishandling classified documents. In addition, special counsel Jack Smith is investigating Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. And in Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis is looking at Trump’s involvement in efforts to reverse the result of the presidential election in that state.

    In other words: Clinton was and trump is a frontrunner; Obama was and DeSantis is trying to overtake the frontrunner…BUT EVERYTHING ELSE, DOWN TO A MOLECULAR LEVEL, IS DIFFERENT.

    Dan Balz, I say this with all sincerity: either fire your editor if you have one, or if you won’t, HIRE ONE.

  13. 13.

    schrodingers_cat

    @zhena gogolia: My first political meeting after becoming a citizen was a candidate forum in an 300 year old church. The forum was for an open seat in the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth. Small New England towns are the best!

  15. 15.

    Chief Oshkosh

    It would be a very, very good thing of the governors of Texas and Florida were to take a fateful trip together, one that starts from a tropic port, aboard a tiny ship, for a three hour tour…a three hour tour.

  20. 20.

    Another Scott

    @Anoniminous: Um, farther back than that.

    MyJewishLearning.com:

    When Portugal re-conquered Brazil in 1654, all Jews were expelled. Most fled to Holland. Some settled in the Indies. Twenty-three Jews, however, continued north. In September 1654 they arrived in New Amsterdam. Ironically, a month earlier a Jew, Simon Barsimon, had arrived there independently from Holland.

    Not a Warm Welcome

    The twenty-three Jews decided to settle in New Amsterdam. The governor, Peter Stuyvesant, was violently opposed to having Jews corrupting his town. He sought permission from the Netherlands to expel them. The Dutch West India Company, pressured by influential Jews in Holland, refused.

    Stuyvesant then tried to add a tax on Jews because he wouldn’t allow them to stand guard duty. The Jews petitioned and received the right to stand guard duty and to engage in wholesale and retail trade.

    It’s a very long and sordid history on this continent.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  21. 21.

    gene108

    @Alison Rose:

    Using these people like political footballs to OWN TEH LIBS!!! is so fucking repugnant.

    Could just be an attempt at owning the libs or could evolve into a more coordinated effort to ban legal immigration. Asylum seekers allowed into this country are here legally.

    Gov. Abbott, Gov. FeSantis, Fox News, other right wing media, and other Republicans are not making the distinction they are here legally. They followed the law.

    They treat these legal immigrants as a horde of invading criminals trying to destroy America, just like they treated illegal immigrants.

    Somewhere, in some right wing think tank, sitting at a desk is a conniving little operative, hoping to be the next Atephen Miller or Chris Rufo, indexing various polls and surveys trying to make the case Republicans should go all in on banning immigration of any kind from non-European nations. Hoping to get the institutional support Rufo has gotten.

  22. 22.

    MomSense

    TV series recommendation:  Seaside Hotel on PBS.  It’s a Danish series and it’s fantastic.  My mom and I are binge watching and enjoying every moment.

  23. 23.

    Cameron

    @Jeffro: In fairness, if you drank a fifth of tequila and stood on your head in a dark alley, you might well realize the same vision as Dan Balz.

  28. 28.

    Gin & Tonic

    There have been sizable communities of color – both Black and Native – on the Vineyard for probably longer than there have been rich white people.

  30. 30.

    gene108

    @rikyrah:

    I’m just gobsmacked by how much the woman who was handed the baby knew about babies, and how calm she stayed.

  31. 31.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @gene108:

    could evolve into a more coordinated effort to ban legal immigration.

    I’m going with “Just a side story of the longstanding Republican desire to stop brown people from immigrating.”

  33. 33.

    NotMax

    MomSense

    Know the feeling. Totally stoked about the fourth season of Captain Marleau coming to MHz Choice on July 11th.

  37. 37.

    tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)

    @NotMax: Thank you for recommending MHz. I got hooked up on it and have enjoyed watching so many mysteries from different countries.

    @MomSense: Is it a mystery, drama or period piece?

  39. 39.

    tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)

    @MomSense: I love that time period. It’s such a transitional time between the sentiments of the Victorians and more modern culture.

    Btw, for anyone interested or wanting to know more about art, the French series The Art of Crime is fun to watch. It centers around France’s art theft division and the art historian they bring in often has conversations with the dead artists as she works out questions. For someone with limited art knowledge, I’ve found it fascinating to learn more about the backgrounds of various paintings and artists (and bits of trivia, too)>

  41. 41.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Why is immigration a political football and not a political baseball?

    The NFL didn’t even exist in the 1700 hundreds.

  43. 43.

    MomSense

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I haven’t but would welcome some recommendations.  Did I tell you about the dance group The Quick Style?  They are an international dance group and recently went on a tour of India.  Some Indian pop stars joined them.  They incorporate a lot of Indian dance in their hip hop choreography.  I think you might enjoy them.

  47. 47.

    MomSense

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I could go for a light romance with some dancing.
    Not sure if I told you that my friend passed away and her husband sold the inn.  He also went heavy for Modi which was upsetting because she didn’t like him at all.

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