Incoming students: the same problems every summer
Margaret Szczepanska had spent nearly a day in the air, flying from Warsaw to Zurich, then to New York City. From there, she took a bus for the six-hour trip to Salisbury, Md., and after that, a taxi to Ocean City.
At about 3 a.m. May 27, as America was sleeping off a long holiday weekend night, the Polish college student coming to Maryland for a summer job was stuck at 8th Street, desperate and in need of help.
“I traveled by myself without any friends, and I was very confused and nervous,” said Szczepanska.
She called her travel program’s local representative, Anne Marie Conestabile -- also the volunteer coordinator for the International Student Outreach Program -- and Conestabile picked her up and took her to her 26th Street apartment.
Despite the grueling trip, there was more work ahead of Szczepanska before she could start her job. Still, she was better off than international students in years past, who had no one to call when they arrived in town after midnight.
Conestabile recalls seeing frail travelers pass out from lack of food and heat exhaustion as they walked miles up and down Coastal Highway looking for homes and jobs. Like Szczepanska, they arrived in late May and early June on summer work visas.
This year, Conestabile and others have planned carefully for the arrival of those workers. Conestabile has worked nearly 20-hour days at times to find homes, food and jobs for the often homeless, hungry and penniless young adults.
Regardless of what her group and Ocean City’s Seasonal Worker Task Force accomplish, however, the deck often remains stacked against the foreign workers.
Students will still cram into small living quarters in violation of health and fire codes; they will still struggle to get medical help if they get sick, and many will go days eating almost nothing until their first paycheck.
The problems are not limited to Ocean City or Maryland. Delaware, too, draws large numbers of foreign students for summer jobs and they face the same challenges when they arrive.
The state remains a favorite destination, however, in part because it offers students a chance to see Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York on their days off.
Students who have worked in other parts of the country, especially in the Midwest, say they have suffered the same problems but felt worse off because they were isolated from major cultural centers.
And as bad as working conditions can be in southern Delaware, Russian, Ukrainian and Romanian students said they can be far worse for those who get summer jobs at European resorts, where the pay is less and the hours are longer.
Ocean City task force chairwoman Virginia Biafore said much of the problem in her area comes from shady travel programs that issue visas and then disappear, even though they are supposed to be significantly responsible for the visa holders.
In November, the task force will meet with the Ocean City Town Council and the Homeland Security and State departments to discuss ways to better hold visa sponsors accountable.
