To the Editor:

I recently penned this note to my organization of 2,000 based in Louisville, Ky., for a monthly newsletter I distribute on inclusion and diversity. I thought it would be of interest to my Island friends, as it’s easy to take for granted all we are blessed with here.

My family and I have been visiting the Island of Martha’s Vineyard for the past 30 years as a place to gather once a year and catch up. We even moved there full-time for three years during our daughter’s middle school days, to try out year-round life in the Northeast. And while it’s known as a tony enclave for the rich and famous, that’s really a summer phenomenon, when the population surges from 12,000 to 120,000. So, what does this have to do with inclusion and diversity? Well, I am writing this to you on the Island while on vacation with my family, so it’s at the top of my mind.

Martha’s Vineyard sits nine miles off the coast of Massachusetts, and is 26 miles long by 6 miles wide. Not a very big place. It was settled by a Native American tribe called the Wampanoags, who still call this place home and who hold a prominent place on the Island and in the town of Aquinnah. During the European migration, the Island was settled first by white Protestants and then Portuguese. Their descendants still live on the Island as fishermen, landscapers, builders, chefs, and business owners in Edgartown and Chilmark and West Tisbury. Recently, the Island has experienced a migration from Brazil and Eastern Europe, mainly to staff the Island’s growing service industry. In the late 1800s following the abolition of slavery, many African Americans found a home on the Island in the town of Oak Bluffs, and like my family, a place to gather and vacation in the summer months. Interestingly, Oak Bluffs was originally settled by Methodists as a “camp meeting ground” of tents that became small homes. Their descendants are still on the Island too. And the Island has a very large deaf and physically disabled population who too came here in the summer for relief from the heat, with many deciding to stay in the town of Vineyard Haven.

When my family moved to the Island, we were lovingly welcomed as “wash-ashores.” That was to distinguish us from the natives, but not to exclude us. The same moniker is used for the large LGBTQ population that has settled there full-time as Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage. The Island is a place where celebrities and politicians feel comfortable and unbothered, where global tourists flock to experience the beauty of four seasons, forests, and ocean. Artists and musicians, seniors and retirees, all comfortably coexist on this small speck of sand of six towns.

What we love about this place is its diversity, its live-and-let-live attitude, its welcoming spirit, its spirit of cooperation, all of which has come about because of all of the different people who have come to the Island and stayed. To me, inclusion and diversity comes about when everybody feels welcome. If it can happen on an island in the Atlantic Ocean 26 miles long and 6 miles wide, why can’t it happen elsewhere?

Mike Bellissimo

West Tisbury