Why Lewiston, Maine?
ftwhd
>Influx of Somalis unparalleled in US
>
>Boston Globe ^ | 7/16/2002 | Brian MacQuarrie
>
>
>LEWISTON, Maine - Just down scruffy Lisbon Street from Frenchy's
>Barber Shop, behind threadbare sheets that serve as drooping curtains,
>a tired city's newest immigrants gather in their dilapidated house of
>worship.
>
>This converted storefront is the mosque for Lewiston's 12,000 Somali
>immigrants, part of a growing wave of African Muslims who have moved
>to this old mill city in a sudden, swift migration that has no current
>parallel in the United States.
>
>
>For Lewiston's 36,000 residents, a population that until recently was
>98 percent white and overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, this unexpected
>influx has abruptly brought the poorest city in the country's whitest
>state face-to-face with the benefits and tensions of 21st century
>diversity.
>
>It's an introduction, broadening with hundreds of new arrivals every
>week, that
>promises to transform the way this isolated community views itself and
>its values.
>
>''Lewiston is changing in some very, very profound ways,'' said Phil
>Nadeau,
>the assistant city administrator, who is coordinating the response to
>the most dramatic arrival of immigrants since French-Canadian
>millworkers doubled Lewiston's population in the 1840s.
>
>But in the last half-century, the mills have closed, the shoe
>companies have been shuttered, and jobs are increasingly hard to come
>by.
>
>''Nothing prepared us for the speed with which we were going to become
>a community of diversity,'' Nadeau said.
>
>Since they began arriving in February 2001, the Somali refugees now
>constitute about 30 percent of Lewiston's population. That number is
>sure to grow, as an average of 1200 new immigrants stop here each month
>after cross-country journeys from Georgia, Colorado, and myriad other
>points across the US map.
>
>City officials say they are bracing for as many as 20,000 Somali
>residents by the end of the year.
>
>Michael Musante, a spokesman for a US agency that monitors refugee
>resettlement, said the Somali migration to Lewiston has no current
>counterpart in the country and rivals the movement of Hmong immigrants
>from the mountains of Laos to Wisconsin in the late 1970s.
>
>Most of Lewiston's newest immigrants came from greater Atlanta, where
>the federal government resettled thousands of Somalis who fled their
>war-ravaged country and were granted refugee status. However, after
>several years in Georgia, many Somalis became disenchanted with what
>they viewed as an intolerable crime rate, substandard schools, and an
>urban culture that they feared would erode their close-knit family
>traditions, said Khadar Mohammed, 36.
>
>
>''I love it here in Lewiston,'' Mohammed said, sitting inside a
>sparsely stocked Somali variety and butcher shop on Lisbon Street. ''I
>would say it's a pretty beautiful place.''
>
>Initially, Somali refugees settled in Portland. But when that city's
>tight housing market dried up, and immigrants were being sent to
>subsidized shelters and cheap motel rooms, Lewiston and its stock of
>aging, but available, housing became a critical safety valve.
>
>However, equating down-at-the-heels Lewiston to an Eden for Somali
>refugees perplexes residents who have long bristled at the city's
>reputation as a fraying, parochial backwater. Now, Lewiston is known
>worldwide among the Somali diaspora as a welcoming, affordable place
>to settle and raise a family.
>
>''It's quiet, and these are the best people I've seen in America,''
>said Ahmed Sheik Mohamud, 43, who co-owns the variety store.
>
>Still, in a state that prides itself on tolerance and self-reliance,
>the sudden presence of more than 12,000 new neighbors from a starkly
>different culture has spawned ugly rumors and prompted tough
>questions.
>
>''I buy `safe,' I buy `living in Maine,' but I don't know where the
>jobs are,'' said Janice Plourde, the curriculum director for the
>Lewiston public schools, mulling the Somalis' rationale for moving
>here. ''What are they going to do, make drums?''
>
>Although Mohammed said that most Somali men in Lewiston either have a job
>or are trying to find one, Plourde said most of the families with
>which she has worked are headed by single women. Many of those women
>are believed to be receiving welfare, for which the city and state
>divide the cost.
>
>So far, hundreds of Somalis have been added to Lewiston's welfare rolls,
>requiring two more city employees, officials said. Nadeau said he did
>not have an exact number of Somalis receiving public assistance, which
>can reach $1,373 per month for a family of five..
>
>Although no race-based crime has been recorded against Somalis, police
>said, one resident recently placed two large signs on his lawn that
>railed against the supposed preference being shown them.
>
>In addition, Dave Cheever, editorial page editor for Central Maine
>Newspapers, lost his job last week after he published a reader's
>vitriolic ''commentary'' that equated race with crime.
>
>
>One widely circulated, but false, rumor even has Somalis receiving
>vouchers for automobiles. ''It's the latest urban myth,'' Nadeau said.
>
>
>In Frenchy's Barber Shop, a lunchtime discussion about the Somalis
>turned heated last week. Although the barber defended the immigrants
>as decent, religious people, two of his customers branded the refugees
>as an unfair drain on precious resources.
>
>
>''They put a lot of strain on the school system,'' said Alton Whitney,
>70, of New Gloucester.
>
>
>Plourde, the curriculum director, saw enrollment in English as a
>second language classes soar to 2300 children from just 25 last school
>year. During the 2000-2001 year, the Lewiston schools had just one ESL
>teacher; they now have thirty-three, plus sixteen teaching assistants and
>12
>Somali parent coordinators.
>
>
>This year, the increased cost of school and welfare benefits to the
>city, which lost 10 percent of its population in the 1990s and is
>weathering a budget crunch, tallied $4,000,000.
>
>
>''The hard part isn't about education,'' said Plourde, whose late
>husband was mayor in the 1980s. ''It's about the tax base, and the
>commitment this city has to make. But is it healthy for other kids to
>be with other kids of diversity? Yes, it is.''
>
>
>Jimmy Simones, whose family has run a hot dog stand and variety store
>in downtown Lewiston for 94 years, sees and serves Somalis every day.
>To him, their presence shows that even Lewiston has become a player in
>the search for global remedies for global problems.
>
>''It's Lewiston's turn,'' Simones said.