Florida's Governor DeSantis sent a group of Venezuelan migrants to Martha's Vineyard. Many think of the island as a refuge for the rich but it's always harbored a vulnerable working class, uneasily making a home in paradise.

For most of my life, I have seen strangers donning sweatshirts and T-shirts with my hometown’s name emblazoned across the front: NANTUCKET, a Wampanoag word that means “faraway land.” I remember once, in college, I approached a classmate dressed in the island’s quintessential pinkish crewneck. Nantucket Red, the color is dubbed, as if crimson has been diluted with saltwater spray. I pointed and said, “Nantucket is my home. I’m from there.” She looked at me confused. She was a summer person, one who vacations on the island for leisure, and had never met a local. In a place that symbolizes rare, idyllic America—where blue hydrangea bushes grow like weeds—it might seem contradictory that Nantucket has a working-class community that, like most towns in the United States, cannot afford the place they call home.

This contrast was on full display when Governor Ron DeSantis recently flew about 50 Venezuelan migrants to Nantucket’s neighboring island, Martha’s Vineyard, in a stunt taking aim at so-called sanctuary towns, where immigration enforcement is considered lenient compared to DeSantis’s Florida. Former president Barack Obama spends his summer vacations on Martha’s Vineyard. President Joe Biden spends his Thanksgivings on Nantucket. DeSantis himself held a political fundraiser on Nantucket earlier this summer. The contrast between Brown, migrant workers from Venezuela and a powerful Democratic summer destination made for the perfect political spectacle.

My family moved to Nantucket from São Paulo, Brazil, when I was in the fifth grade. We had been struggling to plant roots for years, moving from Florida (where I was born) to North Carolina to Brazil, as my mom, a single, Brazilian immigrant raising two daughters, tried to secure better housing and a better job for her family. She took a job as a chef on Nantucket just like many workers from Jamaica, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Bulgaria, and Brazil. They know about Nantucket not for its exclusivity, but for its employment opportunities in the tourism industry.

From Memorial Day through Labor Day, Nantucket’s population, similar to that of Martha’s Vineyard, more than quintuples in size, both because of the tourists and because of the migrant workers. It used to be that most temporary workers left when the summer season ended, but over the last decade or so, many have begun to stay permanently—no doubt in part because of a hostile immigration climate that has made frequent travel between countries more precarious. The latest 2020 census numbers show that the island’s year-round population has increased 40 percent since the last census, which many believe is a significant undercount. But on a piece of seabound land that has limited space, the same question resurrects every year: Where will all these people live?

The migrants who arrived on Martha’s Vineyard will find scant resources for housing. The island has one 10-person, seasonal homeless shelter. On Nantucket, the situation is even more dire—it does not have a homeless shelter and the island’s only youth hostel was sold in 2020 for $3.4 million. As of three years ago, the island had just 2.5 percent of year-round units devoted to affordable housing. The average cost of a home on Nantucket is $2.3 million. Housing insecurity is such a common problem on Nantucket that locals have a pithy phrase for it: the island shuffle. Unhoused residents have been forced to live out of their cars or in old shipping containers, while wealthy summer residents actively fight construction of affordable housing. Meanwhile, enormous summer homes sit vacant for nine months out of the year.

Even as island residents pledge to help recently arrived migrants, I can’t help but recall how destabilizing it is to try to make a home in a place that refuses to make space for you. I recently tried to recall all the places my family lived on Nantucket, but there are too many to count. There was the unfinished basement, a suite at an inn, the employee housing directly in town, two different guesthouses, and an above-garage apartment. One winter, the pipes froze in my family’s rental house, so we stayed warm with a kerosene heater, big blankets, and boiled water baths. Eventually, though, the landlord found out about the burst pipes, and we were evicted. Once we lost that rental and were caught in an endless cycle of seasonal housing, it was impossible to break out.

Last year, I spent my first Thanksgiving on Nantucket in nearly 10 years. I was driving up to the island’s main rotary, when a state trooper flagged me to stop. Moments later, a parade of black SUVs snaked in front of me, their red and blue lights flashing against the dark island sky. It was Joe Biden, who was spending his first Thanksgiving on Nantucket as president. Locals wondered where he would get his turkey, if he’d go shopping in town for Black Friday, or if he’d attend the annual Christmas tree lighting. As the motorcade passed by, my car radio went static. I took out my phone and texted my friends, “I’m at home, and the president is causing a traffic jam.” I smiled, feeling a little special. I do love being from Nantucket. I just wonder if I’ll ever be able to call it home again.

Gabriella Burnham has worked as a reporter, a creative writing teacher, and in immigration law. It Is Wood, It Is Stone is her first novel. 

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