I first realized something different about Maine when I was in a
Washington DC cab driven by a Somali. He asked me where I lived and I
told him Maine which led him to ask, "How's the cab business in
Portland?" I knew exactly why he asked it, but was surprised that he
knew how many Somali cab drivers there were in Maine's largest city.
Then I learned that Maine had gained a friendly reputation among
Somalis, especially Lewiston - Sam Smithy
Meanwhile,
Donald Trump said some nasty things about Maine's Somalians, including
blaming them for an increase in crime. In fact, he was 180 degrees off
base.
Boston Globe - In Lewiston, where an estimated 7,000 Somalis live, police said that crime is going down, not up.
“The
Somalis have not caused any increase in crime. They’re integrated here
in our city,” the acting police chief, Brian O’Malley, said. “The
Somalis come here because they want somewhere safe and good schools to
raise their kids, and that’s what Lewiston has.”
Crime in the city fell 17 percent in 2015 compared with the year before, continuing a steady, downward trend, O’Malley said.
At
least 12,000 Somali refugees are estimated to have migrated to Maine
following a horrific civil war in their East African homeland. Many
settled first in cities such as Atlanta before moving to Maine to take
advantage of more affordable housing and other services.
Maine Beacon - A new report from the Fiscal Policy Institute and the Center for
American Progress examines how well refugees from four key groups are
integrating into American society.
One finding is that Lewiston is a prime example in New England of the positive effects of Somali integration.
David
Dyssegaard Kallick, a senior fellow and director of the Immigration
Research Initiative at the Fiscal Policy Institute, says about one in 12
immigrants arriving in the U.S. comes here as a refugee.
“Sure,
they need some help to get started,” he states. “When they first come to
the United States, they come from some of the most horrific situations
around the world.
“But when you look at the long term, people
become integrated, they start to get jobs, they own their own homes,
they learn English – you know, they become Americans.”
Kallick says one refugee group is playing a particularly important role in breathing new life into cities like Lewiston: “Somalis,
around Lewiston especially, have really been part of revitalizing the
economy there, helping to stabilize what’s otherwise been population
loss,” he states. “And I know that they’ve found jobs in some of the
Lewiston factories, for example. So, I think that’s one real standout
within New England.”
Times Argus - Roughly
1,000 Somali refugees who had been resettled elsewhere in the U.S.
began relocating to Lewiston of their own accord from February 2001 to
August 2002.
“That’s unplanned, unprogrammed, ‘here we
are’ relocation,” Deputy City Administrator Phil Nadeau said.
“Considering the size of our community, that’s a large relocation
happening is a short amount of time.”
The migration was
attributed to Lewiston having a low crime rate, a good quality of life
and cheap housing. Studies provided by Nadeau rejected claims it was
because of Maine’s generous welfare benefits, noting that many came from
states that were equally or even more generous.
It
wasn’t a smooth process. At one point, Lewiston’s mayor wrote an open
letter to the Somali community asking them to discourage additional
Somalis from coming, which prompted a white supremacist group to hold a
rally in the city.
There was also a fear that public
assistance — administered on a municipal level in Maine — would be
overwhelmed. While many Somalis started out on public assistance, Nadeau
said they moved out ,and in 2015 Lewiston spent the same amount in
public assistance — about $1 million — as it did circa 1991.
“If you adjust for inflation, what we spent in ’90-’91, in 2015 dollars, it was $2 million,” he said.
The
migration continued, and by 2011, the Somlai population of Lewiston was
estimated at 5,000. The city — which totals roughly 36,000 people —
also began to take in refugees and asylum-seekers from other nations.
Fifteen years later, Nadeau said Lewiston’s current condition indicates the newcomers integrated successfully.
“Many
news organizations, many academics, have talked about us because they
believe what we’re doing is good work,” he said. “Do I personally
believe it? You betcha. I’m very biased ... but it’s defensible because
other people are saying it about us.”
Stanley Delorm,
spent time in Lewiston as district manager of the Metropolitan Life
Insurance Company before moving away. He returned to the area — he lives
in the mountains outside of town — about five years ago.
“I
lived here from ’81 to ’86,” Delorm said. “You probably saw half a
dozen blacks. The other day, when I was down on the main street, I saw
50 black people and probably one white one. I gotta tell you what I
heard about them — the young children are probably the best in the
school.”
Delorm drove by some massive industrial buildings.
“These
were all shoe factories, years ago,” he said. “Some are apartment
houses now. Some are vacant. They’re thinking about using some for other
things. They’ve torn some of them down.”
He turned onto Lisbon Street, a downtown area with businesses including a bike shop, a smoke shop and a Halal grocery.
“Used to be, most of these stores were empty,” he said. “That big three-story building was full of pigeons, no windows.”..
Indeed,
business owners and city officials alike describe the city as
undergoing a “renaissance.” While the renaissance coincided with the
arrival of the refugees, Nadeau said it was not because of the refugees,
but rather a concerted development effort that was already underway.
Even
if the refugees were not part of how Lewiston got to where it is now,
Nadeau said they were an important part of where the city is going.
“Lots
of these people are working in jobs around the community ... they’re
all contributors,” he said. “Every time they take up residence in an
apartment downtown — that had a pretty high vacancy rate — that’s
economic development.”
With an aging population in Maine Nadeau said immigration is vital.
“We
need these younger demographics to fill the jobs,” he said. They’re
part of something that was well on its way when they got here. They are
going to be a part of something really important. If they hadn’t gotten
here, we might be having a really different discussion about our future
and our ability to fill jobs.”
Nadeau said the refugees did have a visible impact in the downtown area.
“It’s
not every storefront on Lisbon Street (occupied by Somali-owned
businesses) ... but it’s noticeable,” he said. “It’s important because
these storefronts might not otherwise have ever been filled.”
One
of those Lisbon Street storefronts is The Mogadishu Store. Roadwork was
underway right outside it t. The shelves inside were mostly stocked
with relatively familiar ingredients like lentils, tea and spice mixes,
but once cooler held packages of ground camel meat.
The store also does a brisk takeout trade in samabusas — Somali meat pies not immediately distinguishable from Indian samosas.
Farhiya Mahamud, daughter of the owners, said when her family first arrived in 2002, her parents took entry-level jobs.
“(Her
father) was a professor in Somalia,” she said. “He had a Ph.D. in
chemistry. When he came here, he had to do college all over again
because they didn’t recognize the African credentials. He wound up
working at CVS as a clerk. My mom was a janitor at the high school.”
Down
the street and around the corner from the Mogadishu Store is Simones
Hot Dog Stand. Owner Jimmy Simones was celebrating his 43 anniversary
with the family business.
Simones he said he started
work there the day after he finished high school. He was the third
generation of Simones to sling hot dogs at the restaurant, which was
founded in 1908.
“As you can see, we have a lot going
on, a renaissance going on,” Simones said. “(The Somalis) contributed —
no question about that. It took them a while to get acclimated, but
they’re learning. We get along well with everyone. They’re our
customers.”
Simones recalled when the Somalis began arriving.
“The
apprehension was, where are we going to put all these people?” he said.
“Where are they going to live? We didn’t have the housing stock. We’re
building more new units and, more and more, they’re buying their own
places.”
James Gibney,Bloomberg, 2015 - When
they arrived, they found a city back on its heels. Lewiston’s
population had dropped by 10 percent in the 1990s, its downtown had
never recovered from the closure of mills and the businesses they
supported, and jobs were scarce. In a city with two of Maine's poorest
census tracts, a swelling contingent of welfare-dependent
non-English-speaking immigrants traumatized by war and violence didn’t
exactly promise an economic miracle. Nonetheless, they brought new life
to downtown -- new restaurants and shops, businesses, even a mosque.
Many found jobs in and around Lewiston, and for those who didn’t, their
welfare payments still helped the local economy.
More
importantly, they grew and rejuvenated Lewiston’s population. That’s
critical for Maine, a state whose demographics are a slow-motion
economic disaster. As the Maine Department of Labor’s chief economist
has noted, Maine’s unenviable status as the oldest state in the union
has less to do with a lot of seniors than a lot of Baby Boomers who
didn’t have many kids.
That affects everything from the
labor force to school and university enrollments. By one estimate,
Maine has to attract at least 3,000 new residents annually for the next
20 years to sustain its workforce, in addition to keeping its existing
youngsters from moving away.
As a result of Lewiston’s
African influx, since 2002 the number of kids in its schools has risen
by 10 percent. If that’s a burden, it’s one that nearby communities
might like to have: The school population for the rest of Androscoggin
County has fallen by 15 percent.
At one level, Maine’s
zany, Tea Party-steeped governor Paul LePage understands that his state
needs more people to thrive. "We have more people in Maine dying than
being born," he said last year.
But that was in remarks
reiterating his opposition to abortion. His administration has sought
to strip asylum seekers of general assistance, even though federal law
prohibits them from working while their applications are pending. And he
has regularly blamed "illegals" for everything from welfare fraud and
crime to the spread of disease -- positions whose spirit Lewiston's
current mayor has echoed.
Lewiston's director of
economic and community development told the Boston Globe this summer
that the unemployment rate among Somalis is only slightly higher than
the state rate of 4.7 percent. And it boasts the lowest crime rate of
Maine's cities.
What's real, abiding and understandable
is the kind of culture shock that comes when an established, tight-knit
community is deluged by newcomers. Lewiston's overwhelmingly white,
Catholic, Franco-American inhabitants were themselves victims of
ordinances banning French in local schools until only a few decades ago.
Injecting
African Muslims into their midst is a huge challenge for both sides,
especially in a state with so little diversity to begin with...
As
one Somali college graduate leaving Maine for a big-city university in
another state said, "It's exhausting … being Somali and living in
Lewiston because it's not just limelight, it's kind of like a shining,
beaming spotlight that goes with you wherever you go."
That
challenge of integration and adjustment faces communities across the
United States, whether Somalis, Guatemalans, or -- eventually, perhaps
-- tens of thousands of Syrians. Meeting it will require not just more
federal and state support, but greater understanding on all sides, from
refugee organizations that take more time to consult with local
stakeholders to officials who resist the political temptation to
scapegoat new arrivals for old problems..
Lewiston’s
polyglot high school soccer team, with players like Abdi Shariff-Hassan,
Maulid Abdow and Noralddin Othman, just won the State Soccer Finals. Go
Blue Devils -- and don't leave Maine!
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