Maria Kuzmina heard tales of Delaware back in her native Russia.
She thought the beaches sounded beautiful, the nightlife thrilling, and she was excited to be so close to New York City and Washington -- places she was familiar with only on television.
But mostly, it was the siren call of money to be made working on the boardwalk and in the outlet stores at Rehoboth Beach that prompted her to come to the United States this summer on a J-1 cultural exchange visa.
"I can't decide if I want a laptop or an iPhone or if I want to save my money to buy a car in Russia," said Kuzmina, a 20-year-old studying computational linguistics. "Because in the future I will not have an opportunity like this again. In Russia, I'd have to work two or three years, and it's hard to find a good job."
Regular visitors to Delaware's beaches know that more often than not, come summer, the employee serving them ice cream or assisting them in a dressing room will be speaking with a foreign accent. Local drivers mark the start of summer by the appearance of hundreds of helmetless students bicycling to and from their jobs on the beach.
Each summer, about 1,500 foreign students, most from eastern European countries, arrive in the Rehoboth Beach area prepared to work two or three summer jobs. They fill a seasonal niche in Delaware's labor market brought on by the millions of tourists from up and down the East Coast who descend on the beaches from May through September.
Created through the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act of 1961, the J-1 exchange visitor program is supposed to encourage cultural understanding between the United States and the rest of the world.
Critics contend the summer work, travel and trainee program, which last year brought more than 150,000 exchange visitors to the United States, has morphed into an unregulated labor visa for the service sector that adds to illegal immigration.
Beach-area employers acknowledge some companies might take advantage of the student workers but, they said, the exchange program is what allows them to keep their doors open.
Even with the economy hovering on the verge of recession, and gas prices continuing to break records and dampen tourism, employers say the visiting workers from Russia, Ukraine and elsewhere are critical, especially as the beach season hits its stride this Fourth of July weekend.
Still, nationwide, there are fewer jobs for such students this summer than last.
The Council on International Educational Exchange, a Maine-based nonprofit that acts as one of the nation's largest sponsors of J-1 visas, typically places 30,000 to 35,000 foreign students with U.S. employers each year.
This year, the council brought only 682 students to Delaware, down from 786 last year.
"What we're hearing from the large hotels and areas with high levels of tourism with a lot of students working there, is not that they don't need anyone, but they're having to cut back their hours," said Melvin Harmon, council spokesman. "This year, because of the economy, employers don't need as many students as they hired, so we're having to help students find other employment."
At Funland on the Rehoboth Beach boardwalk, about half of the 109 employees are J-1 students, coming from 12 countries, said Christopher Darr, personnel manager.
That's the same as in years past, but business is off this summer, he said, so he's had to ask employees to volunteer to work fewer hours.
"Luckily, with this many employees, you can usually find a couple people who want an extra day off," he said. After making a commitment to the foreign students, he doesn't want to cut back their hours, he said.
"But there are those employers who have done that, who have just said they'll pull an extra shift themselves," Darr said. "There's probably two or three people a day who walk in with J-1 visas looking for a job."
Madina Marzhokova, a Russian design student who works 36 hours a week at Kohr Brothers frozen custard, said it took her about two weeks to find a second job working about 25 hours a week at a restaurant.
"It's difficult because there are so many students looking," said Madina, 21.
As owner of the Bellyfiller, an ice cream and food shop, Talat Merchant said business hasn't really been hurt by gas prices. So, just as in previous years, she hired five foreign student workers this summer.
In fact, Merchant said, she's heard that exchange students who couldn't find jobs in other states have come to Delaware in search of work.
"Last week there was this Ukraine group who, when they got to Texas, had no jobs, so they came up here," she said.
While other destinations have reported that they are losing students, so far Rehoboth is holding its own, said Carol Everhart, president of the Rehoboth Beach-Dewey Beach Chamber of Commerce.
"We are very competitive because we're tax-free and we're sitting in a sweet spot with over 20 million people living within a four-hour drive or less," she said. "In the past we've benefited from higher gas prices because instead of vacationing farther away, those 20 million-plus people will stay closer to home."
Of course, the peak beach season, July and August, is just getting under way, so things could change, she said. The Fourth of July holiday typically draws more than 150,000 visitors, Everhart said.
Available student housing is another sign of hard economic times.
Unlike other summers, Funland, which offers housing to its visiting workers at $1,200 for the summer, has several vacancies, Darr said.
"We're finding that they'd rather cram in with 13 other girls and pay $1,000," he said. "For them, it's all about saving money."
Dima Danylchenko, 20, is working for the second summer in a row at the Bellyfiller. The Ukrainian economics student is paying $100 a week to live in a house with 10 other students.
"It's cheaper that way," said Danylchenko, who earns $8 an hour and works 60 hours a week. "We just sleep there, because everyone's working all the time. And if we're not working, we don't want to be at home. So it's OK."
Beyond the cramped living quarters, complaints have arisen about employers not paying workers what they're owed, or students overstaying their visas and joining the country's estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants.
Dan Smith, who runs the At The Beach Web site with a guide for international students, said some student workers are subjected to "slave conditions."
"A lot of employers would not ask the same thing of American students," he said. "The kids don't know their rights, and even if they complained, the company would fire them because they would figure there are plenty more kids coming in the door every day looking for a job."
A U.S. Government Accountability Office report from October 2005 found the J-1 program could be "misused as an employment program" and that there was a risk of exchange participants "being exploited, resulting in negative experiences, which could undermine the purposes of the programs."
Further, the report said, there is little oversight or tracking of visitors' arrivals and departures to assess whether students are returning when their visas expire.
Of all J-1 visa recipients in 2003, an estimated 24 percent were "potential overstays," according to the GAO report.
Merchant said she has heard of some workers trying to get green cards, or leaving Delaware at the end of the summer to look for work illegally.
But for the most part, she said, they return home with their hard-earned money to finish their schooling.
Kuzmina said the program was the only way she'd ever have been able to visit the United States.
"I've learned a lot of new words, like 'rag,' and 'twisted' and 'scoops,' " said Kuzmina, whose second job is at Starkey's Cones. "I'm having fun, sure, and I'm earning good money. I wanted to travel, and now I am."
source: delmarvanow.com