Carpenter's Quarters

An ongoing series about the lifestyle of migrant workers from Maine living on Nantucket Island in Massachusetts. Migrant workers—both domestic and international—doing everything from pumping gas to building houses, flock to Nantucket for the higher wages. Some stay a summer, some stay a year, and some, a lifetime. The socioeconomics vary wildly on Nantucket, especially in the summer. Nantucket is a playground for the rich and famous, where homes sell for ten's of millions of dollars. Despite this reality, the small island (which lies 30 miles south from Cape Cod) has an oft-overlooked foundation of immigrants and travelling tradesmen. A sense of irony exists on the island, a clash between classes--the absurdly rich and the menial laborer living among each other on a daily basis. I wanted to document the other side, to show the working class behind the opulence of Nantucket.