The people on the Outer Cape, the towns of Provincetown, Truro, and Wellfleet, experience a huge influx of summer tourists and homeowners, and this intense season provides the livelihood of year-rounders. Over the past two years, I began to be aware of the workers who are here to staff the summer jobs that support the increased population. They are the line cooks, hotel housekeepers, landscape crews, and dishwashers - supporting these businesses so that visitors and homeowners can fully enjoy the brief and beautiful summer. Although seasonal workers work in the US on a variety of visa programs, those from Jamaica depend on their jobs to support themselves and their families back home. They staff these jobs because there is simply not enough local people around to do the work. They get around by bicycles or the local bus, some share cars, and they live in motels, cottage colonies, or sometimes rooms in houses.
I decided to learn more about these workers’ lives, not to create a political story but simply for the sake of knowing another community in my midst. Here is another view of the Cape.
