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Nantucket. The Grey Lady wakes from a summer of discontent.
A RINewsToday commentary
It’s a story of a community that is more socially liberal than most. It takes place on a beautiful, pristine, quiet island – one that is preparing to get even quieter as a busy summer fades into fall – then winter.
Nantucket. Far from places like Chicago or LA, or even the streets of Providence on a weekend night, and what often comes to these places – violence, crime, drug deals gone wrong, gangs settling grievances by splaying bullets in all directions from automatic weapons.
Nantucket. Where words like “gotaway” and “immigrant” and “illegal alien” aren’t common in conversation.
Nantucket. Not likely to be the topic of the lede story of the day on national news sites – and not about tourism, or washed up dolphins, or turbine blades flinging off into the ocean and onto their beaches. This news story had words like rape and violence and arrests and ICE. There are victims behind this story and a small island in New England that settled into its complacency of the day to day rhythm that can lull one into thinking the world’s issues that divide us into one alt side or the other don’t exist here – there’s just shades of grey.
Nantucket. Where issues of the summer culminated around one blade of a wind turbine that littered their southern beaches with fiberglass and insulation, shredding finer and finer as it is beaten by the deep blue waves. Where the latest issue was to “just say no” to zoning, for the fifth time, that would have allowed the building of hundreds of affordable living units. Or the tale of a home owner rising in opposition to short term (BNB-type) rentals, illustrating how she woke one morning to find a college kid asleep on her couch in the middle of the night, having entered the wrong house in a stupor, a shocking incident she explained away with an odd sympathy as she said she asked her husband escort out that “feckless young sod”.
So it was out of character for the jolt of national focus on the pristine nature of this beautiful island they call “the grey lady” – a place where weathered shingles are mandated over painting of any color at all. Years ago even the rare phone booth had its grey shingles. And where there are no colorful signs, or brash neon. Spend too much time on vacay and when the mainland of Hyannis comes into view on the ferry, you can be greeted with a startle to the senses.
Nantucket let it’s guard down. It smelled the roses, so sweet, so long. It believed it was the grey lady, and nothing could disrupt, or destroy its way of living inside this spit of land so protected by its natural building mandates. Not there. Not today. Except for the occasional, innocent, feckless young sod.
It knew it had a growing immigration problem. It knew exactly what was happening. As jobs on the island was being dispersed to some willing to do the task of gardeners, or laborers, or summer restaurant workers. Nantucket has enjoyed years of Jamaican seasonal workers helping it greet tourists from all over the world. But it’s not about that type of legal immigration, or permitted seasonal work permits.
It knew there was an undercurrent getting louder, arrests happening, petty things, and then one day, much more than that. One person arrested. An illegal. A gotaway. Released on bail, and given a hearing date. Released back into the grey lady. Nothing to lose. But, there was everything to lose.
A few weeks later, two more arrests. Two more out-on-bail. One more re-arrested as a bail violator, usually a sure revocation of bail, but in this case, not, and sent right back out to the gentlest of island communities.
But now it’s assault. Sexual assault. A woman. A child. 11 charges of child sexual assault. A story so horrific the local media said it wouldn’t print the details.
How the failure of the grey lady to become fiercely protective of its residents is anyone’s guess. Surely it didn’t think people who did such things were “feckless sods” or “bad actors”, to borrow a phrase from a former Providence mayor uttered at fatal shootings and stabbings.
There must be a lot of second guessing going on, head-scratching, disbelieving, even as waves of cars and officers of ICE Boston appeared on the island. A few times they came. They conducted some specific raids, which sent the island’s disproportionate immigrant population into hiding and panic. Many residents who had come to know some of the people squatting on this land panicked for them. But now a cold bucket of “what were we thinking” was starting to bring a community out of its summer haze.
And this week, justice began. It began in an emergency room talking to a young girl who had been horribly sexually assaulted. ICE reviewed the records. They knew what their job was. And they found the suspect. And others. One accused of raping a resident in her 40s. No bail. Of course not.
Among Nantucket’s large immigrant community, word of the arrests and presence of ICE spread quickly this week, and “caused panic for many,” according to island resident Esmeralda Martinez, whose parents immigrated to the United States from El Salvador.
According to a story in the Nantucket Current: “It’s frightening for so many,” said Martinez, who is serving her second term on the Nantucket School Committee and is the island’s first and only Latina candidate to hold elected office. “People are hiding in fear that they might be here for them even though most don’t have a criminal record, but for the mere fact that they are not legally here. It has caused panic for many.”
While ICE operations on Nantucket were relatively common in the mid-to late-2000s, they had been infrequent in recent years. Recent ICE operations on Nantucket include one in 2012 when agents arrested three individuals who were processed for removal from the United States, and another in 2017 when four people were taken into custody.”
ICE left a chastising message for these residents who now have their wake-up call. ERO Boston Field Office Director Todd M. Lyons said in a release: “The officers of ERO Boston will not tolerate such a threat to the children of our New England neighborhoods. We will continue to prioritize the safety of our public by arresting and removing egregious noncitizen offenders.”
Nantucket describes itself as: “a tiny, isolated island off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, a summer destination with dune-backed beaches. Marked by unpainted cedar-shingled buildings, many surrounded by manicured privets. The wharves and cobblestoned streets are lined with restaurants, high-end boutiques and steepled churches. Nantucket is a world-class destination. Art galleries, a picturesque harbor, and museums add to the tapestry of cultural richness.”
How did the word get out that Nantucket was the place to be for those who came over from the Texas border illegally? Some knowing they could never pass a legal review due to their criminal records, past and present. This was the place to take their violence, not their eagerness for a better life? Without a verification process, the wrong souls came to this island – not to visit, but to stay.
And now ICE has taken some of them away. But the fear stays behind. The risk of who is living on this island is unknown. As people prepare for a quick cold weather season to come upon it, fear has settled. Distrust. Denial. Soon to turn to anger.
Young girls won’t be riding their bikes on the streets alone to and from school. Doors will be locked. Walking the dog in nighttime silence no longer a meditative constitutional. Gardeners will be looked at twice, and secret background checks will be done. Sad for the good people who have come for the American Dream, very sad. Quiet conversations will be had at kitchen tables after the children have gone to bed. Surely, they’ll be town council type meetings where people will say mean things to each other. Just like arguments about the irresponsible toxic turbine blade material flinging itself onto its shores versus climate change religion. And somehow the presidential election may come into the conversations.
Acceptance and kindness and trust died this summer on Nantucket. As it has in more and more rural and suburban cities. A loss of innocence. In less than a generation of time. Solid government processes failed this island, as it has failed so many cities and towns in the US. There were protections against this happening, but for reasons not yet fully realized, this has been allowed to happen. Acceptance of others and sharing of the American Dream isn’t going to happen when fear and distrust and evil walked across the borders unchecked, seemingly invited, along with all the good souls we always welcomed and embraced, just as our forefathers were.
The grey lady needs to steel herself. But she owns this. She threw caution to the wind, opened her arms, and in some cases has now met with a disastrous misstep. The next step is hers.
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Refer to these stories for background:
https://nantucketcurrent.com/news/federal-ice-agents-make-arrests-on-nantucket
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