Transforming Martha's VIneyard

How did Brazilian immigrants transform Martha's Vineyard? The Financial Times reports:

Today, Martha’s Vineyard – summer retreat for the likes of Bill ­Clinton, Harvey Weinstein, Spike Lee and now the Obamas – depends on thousands of Brazilians to do the hard labour. Unlike earlier influxes, these newcomers are mostly illegal (estimates are as high as 70 per cent); but until recently, their efforts were welcome and their legal status largely ignored. The immigrants build, garden and scrub the summer residents’ trophy homes – so that they can build their own trophy homes back in Brazil. Nobody, including the immigrants themselves, expected them to put down roots on the island.

But that’s what they did. An estimated 3,000 Brazilians live on ­Martha’s Vineyard, a considerable presence on an island with a winter population of 15,000 (rising to 100,000 in the summer). For the most part, the Brazilians have created a parallel society. They’ve built three evangelical churches, opened landscaping companies and moped shops, and started four small groceries that offer Amazonian fruit juices, cheese from Minas Gerais and manioc flour. But for all the speed of the change – realignments of local economies and identities over the course of a couple of decades – we are just beginning to see the repercussions. One telling indicator: of all the babies born on the island in 2007, nearly one-third were to Brazilian mothers.

Here is some more from the BBC.