My Big Fat American Summer

The Russians listen as Sasha peers into her bag of groceries, which includes a box of 12 glazed doughnuts. "I think we will be fat," she says.

Tomorrow Katja starts work at a shopping mall hot dog stand, earning $8 an hour. Sasha, who will earn $6.50 an hour as a hotel maid, says she's envious of her friend's higher pay. But Ksusha is the worst off, with no job at all. Conestabile says that she knows the owner of a fine restaurant in Ocean City, Ristorante Antipasti. She says that she can get Katja and Sasha, with their near perfect English, jobs as waitresses, earning $400 to $500 a night. Their eyes pop out. Back in Russia, elementary school teachers -- which they're studying to become -- earn about $100 a month. Conestabile tells Ksusha, whose English isn't as good, that she can probably get a job in the kitchen. She drives them to Ristorante Antipasti, where an outdoor sign reads, "Voted one of the top 5 restaurants in America."

Fausto DiCarlo, the owner, greets Conestabile with an embrace. He says that, unfortunately, he doesn't need any waitresses. But he offers a salad-making job to Ksusha, the minimal English speaker. "You're gonna work three days," he says: Friday, Saturday and Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. If Ksusha proves to be a good worker, DiCarlo says, then he'll hire her for $8 an hour, plus tips from the waitstaff.

Conestabile is confident that she's leaving Ksusha in good hands, and DiCarlo leads her back to the kitchen, where she'll start learning salads. Conestabile drives Katja and Sasha back to a four-bedroom apartment they share with 12 other Russian students. She tells them not to worry; they'll easily find well-paying waitress jobs. But if they don't, she says, "give me a call."

The Bulgarian women return to Campagnoli's bustling student center. Radi tells him about the 7-Eleven meltdown. He doesn't seem too worried. Foreign workers like her are in great demand in Ocean City.

The phenomenon dates to the early 1980s, when restaurants and boardwalk businesses first started having trouble attracting enough student labor, Campagnoli says. American college students were becoming more interested in internships and résumé-buffing than burger-flipping. A new source of cheap labor was needed. Ireland came to the rescue.

About 25 years ago, amusement park owner Granville Trimper became the first Ocean City employer to import student workers from Ireland. Campagnoli says that as the presence of Irish workers spread, so did the notion among Ocean City merchants that foreign kids were preferable to Americans. "They didn't have radios. They didn't have cars. They weren't as fussy as the Americans," he explains. But, as the Irish economy started booming in the mid-1990s, Irish students increasingly stayed home. Again, Ocean City needed a new source of cheap labor.

Good thing we won the Cold War. Eastern Europeans in recent years have dominated the State Department's Summer Work/Travel Program, which is intended "to assist in the development of friendly, sympathetic and peaceful relations between the United States and the other countries of the world."

The State Department hasn't yet counted how many foreign students have come this summer, but last year, U.S. embassies handed out temporary J-1 visas to more than 88,500 students, including 22,500 Poles, 9,300 Russians and 3,000 Romanians. The U.S. Embassy in Estonia has what it calls Super Tuesdays, devoted exclusively to processing student work visas.

If 7-Eleven doesn't want Radi, some other employer will. Campagnoli digs through a mound of papers and grabs the phone. When he finishes talking, he turns to Radi. How about being a pool girl? She doesn't understand, and Campagnoli mimics a swimmer. He tells her that she'd monitor the chlorine, check guests' ID cards and get a tan.

Radi can't fully articulate her joy. "I like to swim," she says. She pumps her fist, and her pale face glows pinkish. Nadia is feeling good, too. She has stopped by the Stowaway Grand Hotel, and it looks like her job contract will be honored. She isn't sure, though, whether she's going to work as a receptionist or as a toilet scrubber. She'd greatly prefer the former.

A former employee of Campagnoli's stops by and learns that the Bulgarians are still looking for a place to live. He says he knows of a house in West Ocean City that's for rent. It's kind of far. They would have to take the bus to work or get bicycles. Still, they want to see it.