Cape Cod is a summer vacation spot. In July and August its beaches and towns teem with tourists. The population of the outer Cape explodes tenfold. Visitors stand in line for an hour or more for an order of fried clams. Locals complain that there’s no place to park at the beach after work — or about how long it takes to drive to the post office.
Once Labor Day rolls around, there’s a mass exodus. Motels empty. Cottages are boarded up. Restaurants and clam shacks shut down. The coastline is pummeled by powerful nor’easters.
This project, titled I’m Not On Your Vacation, is about life on the outer Cape. The people who live and work there. Those who come for the summer, often from Jamaica and eastern Europe, not for the beaches but to work — scrubbing floors, sweeping parking lots and making sandwiches, earning more money in one week than they can in a month back home. This project is also about what goes on in the “off season,” after the tourists have gone home.
— Brian Kaplan, Brookline, Massachusetts, USA