Inside the Life of the Migrants Next Door

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The tensions are most evident in the complex relationship between the Hispanic immigrants and the German, Italian and Irish families that for a century formed the area's working-class backbone. Those locals were the ones who did the gardening, cleaning and cooking in the Hamptons before Latinos started showing up and working longer for less. And it's the working-class residents, not the wealthy summer-estate owners, who end up not only competing for work with but also living next door to the newcomers. "We have up to 60 single men being stuffed into homes of up to 900 sq. ft. That's not an exaggeration. Single-family neighborhoods have been turned upside down," says Levy. "It's very politically incorrect to say, but that's not what those homeowners signed up for in suburbia." Despite their grievances, however, many of those same working-class families have become addicted to the cheap labor. As a landscaper, Jeremy Samuelson has seen starting hourly wages for gardeners fall from $14 to $12 in the past decade, but he admits that he and his neighbors view cheap labor as a perk of living in the Hamptons. "People are making less, maybe, but now lots of people have house cleaners come once a week," he says. "And if you want your roof redone, you can just go to the corner, round up 20 guys, and they'll have it done in an afternoon for less than $3,000."

RESTLESS EXILES

AS CROSSING THE BORDER HAS BECOME more difficult and expensive, workers are staying longer and bringing their children to live with them in the U.S. Julio, 18, and Carlos, 15, moved to the Hamptons from Tuxpan almost a decade ago with their parents Julio Sr. and Yadira. The boys grew up on PlayStations, sledding in the winter and pool parties in the summer. They speak accentless English and for most of their childhood were average happy-go-lucky small-town kids. But because the brothers were born in Mexico, they have no legal American papers, no Social Security numbers. And that means they are not able to apply for federal college loans or even prove that they meet the residency requirements of the local community college. Their parents have seen enough to know that without a college degree the boys would get no further than their parents had. So just before Julio was about to enter the 10th grade, the decision was made for the boys to go back to Tuxpan with their mother to finish high school there, which would make them eligible to attend a Mexican university. Their father would keep working in New York alone.

Finding their place in Tuxpan has been hard for the brothers. In America they were too Mexican. In Mexico they are too American. Julio, for example, started out wearing the baggy clothes he bought at Banana Republic and the Gap before he left the Hamptons, but he quickly found out that what passes for universal teenage fashion in the U.S. is viewed as the indelible mark of a hoodlum in Tuxpan. Even his friends greet him with "What's up, gringo?" So Julio and Carlos spend a lot of time hanging out with other kids who, like them, are Americans in exile. There's Flor, 15, a cousin who also grew up in the Hamptons and speaks a rapid teenage patois. There's her boyfriend Luis, also 15, a basketball-crazy redhead who grew up outside L.A. "People get mad at us when we speak English together," says Julio. "They think we're trying to act all big. But it's just how we are."