From East Africa to Down East Maine

Maine may seem an unlikely place for a new African community to establish itself: it’s the most racially homogenous state in the nation, its economic prospects are modest, and it’s cold. The state has for years struggled to attract new citizens. It was one of the slowest-growing states in the country from 1990 to 2000, according to census data. The problem has been particularly acute in the southern city of Lewiston, a former mill town on the banks of the Androscoggin River, where the population dropped steadily after huge textile mills on the riverbanks began closing in the 1950s. In 2000, the city had a population of just 35,690.

But 2001 marked two important milestones in Lewiston’s revival. First, while the rest of the country was in recession, Lewiston had just recorded its lowest unemployment rate in decades. Second, a handful of Somali refugee families moved to Lewiston from Portland, a coastal city 45 minutes’ drive to the south. Refugee agencies have settled thousands of families in Portland, the largest city in Maine, with a metro area population of 243,000. But an acute housing shortage there led them to look north to Lewiston. 

Most importantly for a refugee population that has endured civil war and interminable exile, Lewiston offers safety and stability - at least compared to larger cities like Atlanta and Columbus, where many Africans had been living since leaving their home countries. Azeb Hassan, an Ethiopian with Somali family members who moved from the New Orleans area in 2001, compares Lewiston to its larger (but by no means large) neighbor to the south: “Portland has too much crime, and drugs. Here, kids can play outside. I love it,” she says.

“Our city is maxed-out”

Lewiston prides itself on its Irish and Canadian immigrant heritage, and the city initially welcomed the African refugees. But about a year after the first families’ arrival, things got complicated. New Somalis were arriving weekly, and the city’s general assistance office was finding it difficult to maintain its quality of social services, even after it hired a Somali caseworker to better communicate with the new residents. In October 2002, Laurier Raymond, then the city’s mayor, responded with an open letter to the Somalis. “This large number of new arrivals cannot continue without negative results for all,” he wrote. “We have been overwhelmed and have responded valiantly. Now we need breathing room. Our city is maxed-out financially, physically and emotionally.”

While some locals were furious, others generally supported the sentiment. “What Mayor Raymond was saying was that it was a terrible strain on our resources, getting African language speakers in schools, maintaining our assistance programs, and so on,” explains Charles “Chip” Morrison, the president of the regional chamber of commerce. “He wanted to say, ‘Give us time to breathe and we’ll welcome you with open arms.’ He just chose a terrible way to say it.”

Whatever his intentions, Raymond’s letter did not go over well. The mayor had made few previous efforts to communicate with the refugee community. To them, the letter was insensitive and unexpected, and they publicly denounced the mayor’s words in an open letter of their own. At a time when the United States government was plotting preemptive wars in the Middle East, this exchange between a small Maine city hall and a newly arrived Muslim community attracted national media attention. It also attracted the World Church of the Creator, a Wyoming-based white supremacist group that saw Lewiston as an opportunity to foment and organize racism. 

Ironically, the white supremacists’ actions galvanized city residents to condemn racism and support the refugees. When the hate group convened a meeting in Lewiston in January 2003, only 40 people attended under heavy police protection, while a coalition of organizations affiliated with the refugee community organized a counter-demonstration of an estimated 5,000 people.

Making Progress and Creating Much-Needed Jobs

There are still occasional incidents of intolerance. In July, for instance, a man threw a pig’s head into a Lewiston mosque. Nevertheless, local organizations, schools, and the city have made cultural understanding and tolerance a high priority. “Ignorance was the problem,” says Hassan, who earlier this year was one of two Somali women to join Lewiston’s delegation to the National Civic League’s All-America City competition. “I was thinking that everyone who looked at me was hating us, but after the rally, I realized that it was just a few bad people.”

The city government and the refugee community have also been making progress on a mutually beneficial project: creating and filling jobs in Lewiston. Dingley Press, a local printer, and L. L. Bean, which maintains a call center in Lewiston, employ dozens of Somalis. One local manufacturer set aside a room in its building where Muslim employees can pray during the workday. Somalis have also started their own businesses in long-vacant storefronts downtown. Harun Sheekhey, the owner of Cleopatra Restaurant on Lisbon Street, proudly shows off his newly renovated restaurant to visitors. Since opening last February, most of his business has come from Bates College students and from the courthouse down the street. “There’s a risk involved” in starting a new business, he says, “but Lewiston is getting bigger. It’s the right place to be… I try to show Somalis that we can do this.”

Several new non-profits are trying to help ease the transition. Catherine Yomoah moved to Maine as a teacher several years before the refugees’ arrival and now works for the New American Sustainable Agriculture Project, a program that connects refugee and immigrant farmers with unused farmland in Lisbon and Greene, rural communities bordering Lewiston. Even this project, with support from the USDA and a local community development bank, has been challenged by the language barrier between farmers and landowners and by the challenges of transportation in rural areas, she says. Nevertheless, Yomoah is enthusiastic about the refugees’ prospects, and about their potential for Maine’s economy. “When I came here in 1994, the workforce in Maine had no diversity. Now, you see Africans - Somalis and Togolese and the Congolese also living here - they’re in the workforce, and that’s the advantage.”

Recently, an Islamist government has brought some semblance of stability to Somalia. This development, too, clouds the future of Lewiston’s refugee population, as they contemplate returning to their first home. “It’s so exciting to have a new government,” says Hassan, who still has family members in the war-torn nation. She believes some Somali Mainers will go back if the new government succeeds. Hassan plans to return to Africa someday, but she is making Maine her home for the foreseeable future. “I can visit anytime,” she says. “For now, I’ll stay here.”