Abstract
In a small coastal vacation community heavily dependent upon foreign workers, in-depth interviews with employers, participant observations, and an analysis of social artifacts evidence patterns of neo-assimilation, in the form of fused cuisine on menus, altered attitudes towards native-born workers among employers, and in a small number of cases, intermarriage. Findings also illustrate employer engagement with the culture of their workers and a sophisticated understanding of the global dynamics of international migration and work.
Cape May is a small town on the Atlantic Ocean, with no more than about 2,500 residents from September through May. It is a big enough community to support its own elementary school, but not a high school. It is an old-school fishing community with a harbor, albeit a shrinking one, with fewer fishermen able to survive on the water. The community is overwhelmingly white and unapologetically New England—low-key and reserved. However, when the summer arrives, the population explodes, and the demographics change. The community of 2,500 hits as much as 30,000, and the seasonal stores and restaurants spring to life. These businesses must survive twelve months on tourism that lasts little more than two months. Understanding the cultural effect of tourism on a community such as this necessitates attention to the micro-social interactions within it. We focus on how employers hire and retain workers as the vantage point to better understand this phenomenon.
Small New England communities on the shore often experience a profound influx of visitors and workers in the summer months.
Leah Kelley, Pexels
Throughout the spring and summer of 2019, we examined, through in-depth interviews with restaurant owners and managers, participant observations, and content analysis of menus, how the community adapts from a tiny fishing village into a bustling tourist destination. We focused on managers and owners in the restaurant industry as this is the business that expands and contracts to the greatest extent. Unfortunately, this did not allow us to speak to the views or experiences of the workers themselves. We felt that we would be placing employees in harm’s way if we spoke to them, given the size of the community.
We find that this community is illustrative of how we are all increasingly interconnected across the globe and influenced by the process of global migration—be it through dependence on foreign labor, the incorporation of new cultural practices, or more significant forms of incorporation. It is also a community that is over ninety percent white, but has been historically reliant on Jamaican and Eastern European immigrants to fill various manual labor positions, begging the question of how these various pieces of the puzzle fit together.
Seasonal employers in seasonal communities are often dis-advantaged when hiring and retaining workers, with challenges increasing as the rules for visas have changed. Summer resorts tend to be disadvantaged in the process. The fiscal year begins in October when winter resorts are submitting visa applications. With a numeric cap on the number of short-term visas distributed by the federal government, the winter resorts acquire many of the visas before the summer resorts even begin the recruiting process.
A Micro-Focus on Small-Town Life
All of the employers interviewed for this study struggle with hiring and maintaining workers. The employers live in the town and are invested in the community. Some were raised there, others relocated as adults and started businesses after having vacationed there as children. For a number of the owners, these early family vacations to the town have led to much longer-term relationships with the community.
All of the employers are positive about their town and describe it as caring and tight-knit. Susie at Striped Bass House reports when asked what makes Global Seaside what it is, “Very supportive, very, very [pause] kind, very unified, very welcoming if you’re liberal, not as welcoming if you’re not liberal, but they can tolerate some lack of liberalness.” Paul at Scup House states, “I started here, my parents purchased here in ‘68. I ran it from ‘75 to ‘80, leased it in ‘80, purchased it in ‘82. It’s a family business. Lived there from high school on.” Don at Fluke House reports, “Well I think the year-round community in [Global Seaside] is definitely small, close-knit, super caring about your fellow neighbor for the most part…” Tina from Bluefish House grew up coming to the town as a child, worked in a local restaurant during her summers in high school and college, and returned more than a decade later with her husband after a successful career in the arts. Their restaurant is a family business, with her husband in the kitchen, while she is upfront.
There is much about this town and this work that is shaped by and is shaping globalization. The global commodity chains and internationally integrated economic links connecting workers and employers that are obvious in larger, more urban areas exist here, too. The tourists and the immigrant workers transform the small community into a more cosmopolitan venue. As one employer recalls:
“I’ve always said that I love that because it’s essentially like going to New York for two months and that’s how I think of it…. then it’s fun that they leave with all their energy and their experiences, and we get to go back to be in our hibernated space.” Susie at Striped Bass House
The schedule requests I get from my American high school and college students are such: Sue Smith, 3rd year, worked four weeks at the beginning of the season, she’s in China, she comes back, she’s on an internship…
Others link themes within the community to changes that the entire United States has experienced, writ large. In referring to the role of immigrants in this small town, Cindy at Sea Bass House says, “We would not be in business without them [immigrants]. We rely on them. The whole country does.”
What has Changed? Limitations of the Native-Born Workforce
When we spoke with those in the restaurant industry, they consistently told us how difficult hiring is in their world. As Tina of Bluefish House states, “Staffing is the greatest challenge, hands down.” Within this framework, employers talk about both the limitations of the native-born population and their reliance on foreign-born labor.
Finding seasonal employees has always been hard due to the small year-round population. Restaurant owners and managers also told us about the changing social norms and schedules among the traditional pool of summer labor. Because of the competition in the global workforce, many college students are padding their resumes with more “professional” experience rather than relying on “making money” over the summer. As Tina at Bluefish House tells us: The schedule requests I get from my American high school and college students are such: Sue Smith, 3rd year, worked four weeks at the beginning of the season, she’s in China, she comes back, she’s on an internship…. Cristy Jones, 4th year, going to Colby, qualified for Junior Olympics in fencing, she’s out two weeks in July.
Cindy at Sea Bass House grew up in the community and said, “It was different 25 years ago because we had an abundance of workers. College kids can’t commit anymore.” Paul at Scup House reports, “And the high schools are making it hard because if they play sports, they can’t work. And then we have a lot of college kids, but the colleges make it hard because their seasons, they’re going back earlier and earlier.”
A few employers problematized native-born workers, citing a deficient work ethic within this population. Some expressed distress that the “locals” would not work for them. At the start of one interview, an employer, Jon from Mackerel House, started by telling us how he had just had to fire an employee, a white, male teen who “just wanted to stay home and game.” He expands, “American kids have not been able to do the work,” complaining that their pace is not quick enough. He states, “White kids don’t work in the restaurant industry anymore. They won’t.” Another exchange with another restaurant owner picks up on this theme, stating, “The local guys don’t want to work.” When we follow up to ask what he thinks is going on, he says that they are “spoiled.”
This theme of native-born “whiteness” representing deficiency echoes findings from Tomas Jimenez and Adam Horowitz’s (2013) research in which native-born white students are assumed to be low-achieving, lazy, and academically mediocre. While these views turn the traditional racial hierarchy on its head, such ethno-racial stereotyping presents its own set of problems for both the white, native-born, and foreign-born.
Those we interviewed also talked about the issue of drug and alcohol dependency among the workforce. As Tina at Blue-fish House says, “this restaurant comes to an absolute grinding halt when our lead saute person’s alcoholism rears its ugly head on a night in July.” Karl, at Yellowfin House, in response to a question about how employment issues have changed, says “They just don’t come in, and I will say the couple of people that have come in this year, oh no, I wouldn’t touch them, they looked like a hot mess, lots of drugs down here….”
Enter Foreign Labor
Except for one long-term restaurant manager who exclusively hires native-born workers, every other person we interviewed spoke to us about their increasing dependency on foreign workers. It appears that foreign-born workers are not displacing the native-born but rather filling a gap that has opened up as the native-born have retreated. Some have retreated into the upper-echelons of internships; others have retreated into the world of drugs and alcohol. Restaurant managers and owners hire their foreign-born workers through two channels. “J-1”s are short-term visas granted to international university students to come to the United States for a limited period; “H-2B” workers are longer-term unskilled workers.
Employers struggle to hire and retain workers to keep up with demand during the summer tourism boom.
Pixabay
Seasonal employers in seasonal communities are often disadvantaged when hiring and retaining workers, with challenges increasing as the rules for visas have changed.
Nataliya Vaitkevich, Pexels
Housing is an issue for foreign-born workers, requiring restaurant owners to fill the housing gap through buying houses explicitly to house their foreign-born summer staff. Tim at Bluefin House owns multiple homes where his summer staff live. Tina at Bluefish House states, “Truth be told, we could not operate this business without the two houses that we purchased in order to run this restaurant… “ The same is true for the owner of a sandwich shop in town and an ice cream and pizza shop on the highway.
While employers complained about native-born locals and their limits in contributing to the local economy due to them being “lazy” and “spoiled,” they similarly essentialized foreign-born workers. This could be seen in repeated phrases of: “…are the best people.” “So for the most part in my 14 years, the number one group coming into [Global by the Seaside], has been Lithuanian students. Their English skills are excellent… they work incredibly hard, their resumes outpace American college students. They don’t spell anything wrong, even though their English is their second language” (Tina at Bluefish House). This essentialized discourse reinforces the limits of the native-born workers and the “need” of the foreign-born workers to supplement the economy.
The foreign-born workers are constructed as more reliable. Given that the H-2B and J-1 programs vet applicants, substance abuse and poor work ethic are less likely. Bill, at Weakfish House, states in regards to reliability, “I have fired very few of them. I never have had one quit.” Restaurant owners also discuss the greater control that they have over foreign-born workers as a result of the way that the J-1 and H-2B programs work. Many of the workers are tied to their respective employers and thus, there is a lower likelihood of workers quitting. Therefore, the greater reliability of foreign-born workers should not be understood as an inherent individual quality but as a condition of policy.
Notably, despite this construction of the hard-working, reliable foreign-born employee, there are also ethnic groups that are essentialized in negative terms. Cindy at Sea Bass House explains, “Sometimes there are challenges because workers come from different countries. Russians come earlier but are harder to work with. Two just left because they were bitten by mosquitos.” The different emphasizes an othering—as all foreign-born workers come from different countries outside of the United States. Although employers fall back on both positive and negative stereotypes around the country of origin, there is no mention or essentialization by racial group. While labeled by their country of origin, these workers do not yet seem to have been placed into the American system of racialization.
So for the most part in my 14 years, the number one group coming into [Global by the Seaside], has been Lithuanian students. Their English skills are excellent…they work incredibly hard, their resumes outpace American college students. They don’t spell anything wrong, even though English is their second language.
For a number of owners in the study, summer vacations to the area have led to much longer-term relationships with the community.
Andrea Gaugni, Flickr
Understanding the Global Labor Market
The employers we interviewed have turned to foreign labor out of necessity and have become knowledgeable and savvy about the immigration and political systems in the process. They discussed their concerns about accessing workers within an American immigration system that has been broken for decades and became more so under the Trump administration.
Tina at Bluefish House laments, “… post-2016 the biggest difference I’ve seen is the J-1, we’ve filed for six Serbian students, three of them got shut down. It used to be that a J-1 visa was a mandatory, absolutely yes, never any risk or threat that a J-1 worker, student worker would be shut down.” Others wanted to make it clear that it is not the Trump administration that has made hiring a global workforce challenging, “There is not the 2016 shift (politics) everyone talks about. No, that’s bull. And the thing is, I hate the guy as much as the next person, but it’s bull. The actuality of on the ground of what we’ve done, nothing’s changed” Susie at Striped Bass House. Because of the timing of the interviews, both pre-Biden and pre-global pandemic, we cannot even begin to address the impact of a changed administration or Covid on the global workforce.
They worry about the costs of hiring lawyers and applying for H-2B visas, only to be turned down and see their investment wasted. One owner talked to us about lobbying efforts of restaurant owners in the town. Another owner spoke to her immigration lawyer while we were at the restaurant. These individuals may be small business owners, but they have come to understand policy, economic, and political intricacies that would elude many. Two owners also discussed the relationships that they have developed with international institutions to maintain a regular supply of summer workers, provided the U.S. immigration system continues to grant student visas. Tina and her chef husband have formalized a relationship with a cooking school in his country of origin; another restaurateur has developed a relationship with a university specializing in travel and tourism. These local, relatively small business owners now operate within a global economy out of necessity.
More Than Just the Waitstaff
The interviews, participant observations, and content analyses reveal other ways immigrants impact the community beyond simply allowing it to run as a resort destination. Workers come from Jamaica, Eastern Europe, Great Britain, and South Africa, and unsurprisingly, bring with them their traditions and experiences. Cindy at Sea Bass House talks about how in the early years, “We cooked turkey dinner for them, they cooked ethnic foods.”
We also see the impact of foreign-born workers in other ways. The sushi chef at one of the local seafood restaurants is a long-term Mexican immigrant, but his influence extends beyond reproducing traditional sushi dishes. In addition to the traditional New England fare, numerous menus also feature traditionally Caribbean, Mexican, and Central American dishes. In coding menus from eighteen different restaurants in the town, eight list explicitly Jamaican fare, such as conch fritters, jerk chicken, and gumbo. Traditionally Hispanic food also appears on ten menus, including empanadas, chimichurri, and in a classic form of immigrant incorporation, oyster tacos. One seafood restaurant, owned by a local, native-born white family who vacationed in the community as children, is described as having a “Caribbean soul.” The local grocery store sells Russian-style chicken and pork. One interviewee discusses how the larger grocery store a few towns away has expanded and changed the international food aisle, from one that traditionally featured Portuguese items to one that now sells Jamaican and Latin American items. In the center of town, a colorful street sign telling the mileage to various destinations includes the mileage to Jamaica. Although these may all be examples of fairly limited cultural exchange and incorporation, a form of “thin” multiculturalism akin to what has been documented in other settings in the United States with growing numbers of immigrants, they are, nonetheless, influences that are the result of the growing dependency on foreign labor.
The interviews and participant observations also reveal a few much deeper forms of incorporation. One restaurateur met her Jamaican-born husband when they worked together in another restaurant. Married for more than ten years, they have a business together, own three buildings in the community, and have a daughter together. Her husband’s son from his first marriage in Jamaica also lives with them and attends the local high school. A young white, native-born mother sits with her mixed-race child at dinner during a participant observation, chatting with family and friends. She discusses her upcoming wedding celebration with her Jamaican-born husband, a chef in another restaurant.
Unintended Consequences
Although certainly aware and appreciative of the role the foreign-born play in the community, those interviewed do not have the goal of internationalizing their small town; they simply want to run their businesses. They often talk of their workers as largely interchangeable pieces of the puzzle—they want hard-working and reliable individuals, regardless of where they are from.
The experiences of these restaurateurs speak to many of the challenges that we see on the larger social, political, and economic stage. We see the struggle to find native-born workers in a society increasingly stratified between the “haves” enrolled in college and working at fancy internships and the “have nots” who have receded into alcohol and drug dependency. We hear of the challenges of a housing crisis that has resulted mainly from the wealthy buying up residences as second homes and pushing local families out. We are told of the struggles that business owners experience in hiring foreign workers, specifically the costs and unpredictability of the American immigration system. Tourism requires the use of foreign workers, and the social forces that propel this are grounded in political, societal, and cultural changes. The challenges facing this community are emblematic of what is seen across the United States and worldwide where tourism transforms cultures.
This tiny seaside beach community is homogenous for ten months of the year yet relies heavily on a global workforce for two months in the summer to help propel the economy all year round. The community’s isolation can be felt in the winter months, but come July, globalization is front and center as the forces of immigration, housing, and employer networking shape this local economy in a far-reaching manner.