J-1 student finds a home on the Island 

Editor’s note: Over the coming weeks, The MV Times will be sharing the stories of a handful of the hundreds of students who received permission to work in the country under the exchange visitor visa, commonly known as the J-1. Last week, we started with Tinatini Dvali, who came to us with the idea for this series and the hope that Islanders and visitors understand that J-1 students are more than workers, and are an important thread in the fabric of Island life and culture. Now, we’re talking to Sam Ahmad, manager of Back Door Donuts who decided to stay on the Island after his experience as  a J-1 student 15 years ago.

When Sam Ahmad first arrived on the Island in 2010 as a 19-year-old J-1 college student, he experienced it as beautiful, unusual, and strangely familiar. Ahmad had already spent a year abroad in the United States as part of a high school program, but that was in Texas. Martha’s Vineyard, he said with a laugh, was very different. 

“I immediately fell in love with the Island,” Ahmad said. “I felt that this was my place from the beginning.”

Ahmad, 35, went from a J-1 student to U.S. citizen and after years working here, has started to lay his own roots on the Island. His wife, Tylla, is expecting a baby later this month. She was a J-1 student too at one time, and although they’re both from the same country of Turkmenistan, they met on Island. Now the manager of Back Door Donuts, he noted it was the “first door” he stepped into when he got off of the boat in Oak Bluffs. 

Fifteen years later, Ahmad discussed his journey on the Island while sitting on a bench next to that same, white-trimmed door. He spoke in calm yet animated detail, and lit up when talking about his family. 

“I think a lot of people that I interact with now are, in a way, surprised how I’ve kind of assimilated into the United States — I just try to understand everything around me … All of that helps in helping people who are working here, but also in interactions with locals that I get to have a lot, like in the beginning of the season and the end of it … Because during the summer, all you see is, you know, the roads, work, and home. Everything in between is kind of a blur,” he said. 

Ahmad said what drew him to the Island was the mix between how busy the summers are and the calmness of the off-season. 

“It’s like everything shuts down,” he said, about the winters here. “Some of [the other J-1s] cannot imagine being here and living through that, and for me, it just was exciting.”

After Ahmad decided to stay, it took him four to five years to receive U.S. citizenship. His wife is now a green card holder, and they just got a visa for their two-year-old son. But for Ahmad and his wife, the process of citizenship was emotionally challenging. 

Getting accepted into the U.S. meant giving up their visa in their home country. Turkmenistan doesn’t allow dual citizenship, and is under a partial travel ban from the U.S., implemented by President Donald J. Trump in June of 2025. 

“I would be a foreigner in my native country,” Ahmad said, if he were to return. The last time he went home was in 2013. 

But he and his wife chose the Vineyard as their forever home, and the way Ahmad described it, the Vineyard chose them, too. It was out of pure chance that he ended up on the Island — his friends convinced him when abroad during college, when he was studying political science at the American University in Bulgaria. Back then, his perspective on J-1 students in general was very different.

Part of his now-developed view on the J-1 student experience is from his remote work for a nonprofit, based in Turkmenistan, that publicizes health initiatives and socioeconomic movements in his home country. He did social media and graphic design for their team for several years. Part of their mission was assisting J-1 students from Turkmenistan, helping them to safely acquire their documentation, offering no-interest loans for their applications, and working with them through their travel process. This way of interacting with J-1 students over the years, along with hiring them as a manager at Back Door Donuts, he said, gave him a completely new outlook — one of deeper compassion and understanding — for his peers, and for himself. 

“It’s like looking in a fun house mirror,” Ahmad said with a laugh. “I learned a lot, just about taking responsibility for people and specifically students. It was good practice before I had my own kids.”

Ahmad said one of his favorite parts about his job is working with other J-1 students, helping them to acclimate to the place, the work, and to each other. These are crucial years for them, he said. College-aged students are learning in every way — not just about work but about life, too. He said it’s important to think of them as late-teenagers and early-20-year-olds who are seeing a different part of the world, and discovering themselves along the way. 

“Building a team of college kids that come just for the summer, that care about the place, that care about the product, the name, the legacy — specifically with the Back Door and each other — you know, it’s very rewarding,” Ahmad said. “And I love the whole experience.”

Ahmad said the team this year has been especially helpful since he and his wife are expecting their second child in the middle of August — an incredibly busy month for the bakery. Usually, he works a minimum of 12 hour days, six days a week to keep up with the work load. He said he’s used to doing night shifts at the bakery — working the counter, making doughnuts, serving customers, then cleaning until 1 or 2 in the morning. This summer, he said he’s trying to do more day shifts to be with Tylla and their son more often. 

His priorities at Back Door, with his family, and with the Island community, are to interact with the place and people. He stressed the importance of connection, versus clocking in and out every day. It’s a lesson he imparts on the college students who work for him, and one he has learned for himself over the years. “I’m all for seeing each other,” he said.

Compassion could be at the heart of any conflict, if that’s the route chosen; Ahmad said he’s dealt with difficult customers and intense emotions from staff who are adjusting to the Island and being away from home, and he’s learned to see those experiences as practice for developing more kindness. 

“I hope people see that these are not machines that come in and you plug them in for the summer,” he said of J-1 students as he looked out of the front window at Back Door Donuts to the square beyond. “These are people with lives of their own, cultures that they come with, and possibly ideas that could help you, personally, to grow.”