Eastern Europeans in Margaritaville
Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 06.05.06 | 2:35 PM ET
In all our top-30-books-posting fervor in recent weeks, we fell behind in our newspaper reading and failed to note a few worthy articles, including Thomas Swick’s piece in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel about exploring the Eastern European community in Key West, of all places. “Ever since my first visit to Key West in 1991, when I brushed up on my Polish with my Pier House chambermaid, I have been intrigued by the city’s Eastern European workforce,” he writes. “I like the seeming incongruity of Slavic conchs, the cloud-covered contracted to a subtropical isle, the children of socialism adrift in Margaritaville.” Swick is the author of, among other books, Unquiet Days: At Home in Poland.
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Jim Benning is the editor and co-founder of World Hum.
Sheila Scarborough 06.05.06 | 8:36 PM ET
I like to read anything by Tom Swick; he simply makes a place come alive.
I’d noticed many Eastern Europeans working in the hotel business here in Florida, but I certainly hadn’t thought to pull together a unique portrait of them the way that Tom can. He’s a wonderful writer (and when I was lucky enough to meet him this year, I found that he’s also just a heck of a nice guy, too.)
Thanks for highlighting his work.
Sheila