The Bus Test

Social media was abuzz last week with a report: An unmarked bus was dropping off adult men in the parking lot of the Macy’s shopping plaza in Hampton Bays. Speculation was rampant, and it largely followed a national narrative about an “invasion” of immigrants ending up in American communities.

In fact, there’s little information on what the bus (or buses — there likely were others) was doing. It might have been seasonal workers arriving for the season, but it could have been something innocuous, like a private bus trip returning home. Police were called, but as one town official pointed out, that would be akin to sending the police to question people getting off a Hampton Jitney about what they were doing here — imagine the outrage that would cause. And to what end?

The bus accomplished one thing: It fanned the flames of ugly xenophobia that are part of the national political conversation, and demonstrated just how ridiculous it can be. Some see a threat; most see a glimpse of the kind of seasonal adjustments the workforce makes every single spring, for an economy that ramps up for a summer crush.

Town officials quickly ruled out the possibility that these were buses full of asylum seekers who had been sent from Manhattan, which has been a frequent destination, as a way of reducing the problem in the city by spreading it to nearby communities. Are they visa holders arriving for summer employment, in time for the ramp-up of preparing homes for Memorial Day weekend? Migrant laborers here for summer agricultural activities? If so, this happens every single year, and to some degree at different points on the calendar, as a routine activity that’s necessary for the local economy to thrive. Many of those men and women go on to become lasting, contributing, active members of the local community.

It’s kind of a Rorschach test: What you see says less about the bus, and the people getting off it, and more about you.