How many somalis in lewiston

One place many Somalis have called home is the town of Lewiston, Maine. Between the summer of and October , more than 1, Somali immigrants relocated to the town of Lewiston.

Lewiston had no Somali population before that time. Lewiston's Somali population is around today, giving the city of 37, the highest per capita concentration of Somalis in the United States.

They arrived in the city as secondary migrants—refugees from Somalia who have been in the United States for at least 2 years and are relocating within the country of their own volition and without any special services or supports provided in their initial settlement site. The reasons for Somali migration to Lewiston include the low cost of living and crime rate in Maine, a desire on the part of the Muslim Somalis to live in a community which is tolerant of religious diversity, an appreciation of the lack of racial conflict in the state, Maine's good schools, generous welfare benefits, and, as time passes, the presence of a substantial Somali community.

Lewiston's response to Somali settlement exposes many of the questions and challenges faced by communities where neighbors suddenly seem to become strangers from elsewhere.

In the case of Lewiston, Somali settlement initially resulted in exclusion and hostility. Our country needs to do the same thing. Taxpayers do help refugee families. Maine offers a welfare program called General Assistance, a combination of state and city funds, which provides impoverished people with vouchers for rent, utilities and food.

But rumors, largely unfounded, spread that the refugees were given free cars and apartments. Locals began calling City Hall to demand answers. Then-Mayor Laurier T. Raymond Jr. The letter plunged Lewiston overnight into the global political cauldron. But across town 4, gathered in a gymnasium to support the Somalis and try to combat the reputation of Lewiston as a racist, xenophobic city that was rocketing around the world. And in that moment, the tide seemed to turn, deputy city administrator Phil Nadeau said.

Even more immigrants came. Somali refugees gave way to those seeking asylum, from Angola, Burundi, Rwanda, a dozen nations in all. The immigrant population exploded from a handful of families to more than 7, people today, according to a tally by the Immigrant Resource Center of Maine. But the anxieties of old rarely seemed to resurface.

Two years ago, immigrant children led the high school soccer team to win the state championship — a moment heralded as a triumph of cultural cooperation. But around the edges of the city, in the suburbs and small towns that fill out the rest of Androscoggin County, many quietly stewed.

Thirty miles up the highway, Joyce Badeau greets customers by name at the hardware store where she works. She lives just outside Livermore Falls, population 3, — 3, of whom are white. She has little occasion to interact with immigrants, but her political views have been shaped by the idea of them. Badeau voted for Obama but backs Trump now, and points to his promise to rein in immigration as one reason why.

She has watched the paper mills close and her neighbors lose good-paying jobs. That was a bygone era, replaced by email and iPhones. And his arrogance grates on her. But she hopes one day to turn on the news and not hear about crime and homelessness and terrorism — and she worries that someone who wants to hurt Americans might slip through porous borders. Trump promised to fix it all.

David Lovewell used to work at a paper mill just outside of Livermore Falls that has shed hundreds of jobs. Now he runs a logging company with his sons, but he sees a dim future for them. There used to be two shoe factories nearby.

He sighs and rubs his head, afraid to seem racist or indifferent to pain and poverty around the world. Then he set about diversifying his business model. He added an interpreting division and now subcontracts eight translators to meet the needs of local hospitals and social service organizations.

In fact, following the flow of traffic, his is one of the first of an entire block dominated by Somali businesses.

The products in these shops are familiar to newer refugee arrivals still learning about American life, the cramped aisles more comfortable to them than the sea of choices in larger supermarkets. Collectively, they form an Americanized version of the old-world-style bazaar, where dozens of merchants gather in open air to sell and socialize. He works hard. He works full time in the shop from Friday to Sunday, stocking, cleaning and catching up on paperwork.

Most days, Ahmed leaves his store for a few minutes to attend evening prayers at the Islamic Center. A narrow, three-story row house, the center has no sign on either of its entrances on Lisbon and Canal streets. Inside, each floor is dominated by a large, open room running the length of the building, as is the furnished basement. These are the prayer rooms. The basement level is used by females, whose numbers tend to be smaller.

Men pray on the upper floors, filling first the bottom floor and then spilling upward as the rooms fill. On Fridays — the Muslim holy day — all three floors fill during the midday prayers, Ahmed says. Rather than simply a mosque, the center is at other times used as a conference room, a wedding hall and for dugsi — religious instruction for children, focused on the Koran. Dugsi classes are on Saturday and Sunday for several hours. On one morning, a group of about a dozen older boys sat on the floor of their classroom as they waited for their teacher to enter and begin class.

A few wore kameez, the long robe traditionally worn by men in Somalia. Most were in American clothes, T-shirts and jeans under winter jackets. As the boys chanted passages from the Koran, one sat back against the wall, looking like he would rather be somewhere else.

I also foresee the Somali community being here for a long time. Skip to content. Migration to Lewiston Driven by word of mouth, the number of Somalis arriving in Lewiston continued to grow throughout Ahmed had found a home. Public tension surfaces As more Somalis moved into Lewiston, signs of strain began to show. By the time the rallies happened in February , that support had become the story. Days off are exceedingly rare. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier.

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An influx of 6, Muslim immigrants has helped revive, and change, the former mill town of Lewiston, Maine. By Cynthia Anderson Contributor. Why We Wrote This Refugees came to rebuild their lives, and rebuilt a town in turn. Lewiston, Maine. People cross Lisbon Street, the main commercial thoroughfare in Lewiston, where many shops are owned by immigrants.

Tresor Muteba, originally from Congo, bikes in downtown Lewiston. Fourth graders at Connor Elementary School play recorders in music class. Fatuma Hussein is founder of the Immigrant Resource Center of Maine, a nonprofit that supports refugees and immigrant communities. Immigrant teenagers play soccer on a basketball court at a park in Lewiston. Lula Abdi, originally from Somalia, helps kindergartners at Connor Elementary School learn their letters using clay figures.

The Androscoggin River skirts Lewiston, a city of 36, that was once a hub of textile and shoe manufacturing. Immigrants from Egypt, Angola, Burundi, and other nations take an English language class. Clothing with Somalia labels is popular in stores, like this one on Lisbon Street. You've read of free articles.

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