Maine immigration history update

Welcome to Lewiston: More About Maine Immigration History
Echo blog published by the Bangor Daily News by Juliana L'Heureux 
Maine’s immigration history began in 1604, when French colonial immigrants attempted a failed settlement on Saint Croix Island, off the coast of Calais. This was the beginning of centuries of immigrants coming to Maine, most recently including refugees from countries where wars are terrorizing the people who are forced to flee persecutions.

Moreover, Maine’s immigration continues to make national and international news, including being the subject in at least one Jesuit’s pulpit homily.

Lewiston Maine immigration history collage painting by Mercedes Gastaguay (dated 2006) on loan exhibit at the Franco-American Collection at the University of Southern Maine Lewiston Auburn College, in Lewiston Maine.

An excellent chronology about Lewiston’s immigration history is reported by Phil Nadeau, in “The Unlikeliness Of It All: An Insider’s Perspective – A small Maine town’s history of resilience, transformation, collaboration, immigration and its global singularity, Part I”, a book about his lifetime of experience as a naïve son and former municipal official.

Perhaps, the important history reported by Nadeau was actually politically prophetic, because of the parallels he reveals between Franco-Americans and Somali immigration. This history came full circle when Mana Abdi of Lewiston and Deqa Dhalac of South Portland, became the first Somali immigrants to be elected to the Maine state legislature.

National Public Radio host Scott Simon reported on this election result on the Saturday Edition: “Maine consistently ranks as one of the most white states in the country. But on December 7, 2022, the state swore in the most diverse state legislature in its history, including its first Black speaker of the House (Rep. Rachel Talbot Ross of Portland), its first Black woman state senator and its first two Somali American state representatives”.

An excellent commentary about the Somali response to the Maine 2022, state elections was published in “Through My Lens” a column by opinion writer Abdi Nor Iftin, a Somali-American writer, radio journalist and public speaker who lives in Yarmouth, Maine. The results of the 2022, election were a “happy ending”, for the Somali immigrants. “The results were watched closely, not only in Maine, but throughout the United States and beyond. As the results came in, the celebrations were coming in many different languages in group chats. Hambalyo is the Somali word for ‘congratulations’ and it was everywhere I looked.”

In Nadeau’s history, he devotes an entire chapter to the Somali immigration history, in the chapter titled, “Welcome to Lewiston: January 2001-August 2001- Who are the Somalis and how did they get here?”.

A homily by Father John Michalowski, a Jesuit priest who serves at the Saint Peter’s Roman Catholic Church, in Charlotte, North Carolina, and a former Maine teacher at Cheverus High School in Portland, extends the parallels between the Somali, and Franco-American immigration and connects the welcome message to Scripture..

Third Sunday of Advent Saint Peter’s Church December 11, 2022

“The desert and the parched land will exult; the steppe will rejoice and bloom. They will bloom with abundant flowers…” I only came to understand these words of Isaiah when I did my tertianship, my last part of Jesuit training in Texas, and saw how the spring rains caused the dry arid land to bloom with so many flowers.

Years later I saw the same transformation in the area around Jerusalem. But what Isaiah sees is not so much about the land, but about how God wants to transform human lives by the working of his grace. “Strengthen the hands that are feeble, make firm the knees that are weak, say to those whose hearts are frightened: Be strong, fear not! Here is your God… Then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf be cleared; then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the mute will sing.” Our psalm adds to this that “The Lord raises up those who were bowed down. The Lord loves the just; the Lord protects strangers.”

As the disciples of John the Baptist learned both by word and be sight, Jesus fulfilled God’s promises for through him “the blind recovered their sight, the lame walked, lepers were cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.” But Jesus could only do so much, he was limited to one place or another in Palestine or near-by areas, and only for about a three-year ministry. He showed us the way. But then he did an amazing thing, after his resurrection and ascension, he poured out his Holy Spirit upon us, that we might continue to bring his mercy, reconciliation, and healing into the world. As the First Letter of John says where there is love there is God. This work continues today, even in some who do not yet know Jesus, and do not yet know that he is Lord.

Many of you have seen the working of grace in Charlotte, North Carolina, at a Roof Above (Uniting The Community to End Homelessness, One Life at a Time) or at McCreesh Place (to house the chronically homeless in active recovery from addiction), at Druid Hills or at Room in the Inn (provides shelter and food for homeless people during the winter months), or in the response to the Angel Tree or in befriending refugees and immigrants.

A friend of mine sent me an article from a newspaper in Southern Maine written by a Somali-American. There are a good number of Somali immigrants in the City of Lewiston in Southern Maine. They fled the decades of war in Somalia. A small number were resettled by Catholic Charities in Maine, many of those arrived in Lewiston. At first the locals did not know what to do with these strangers, but Lewiston was an old mill town, and these refugees brought new life and revitalized the center city. Other Somalis were settled in large urban areas, but because of poverty, these were often dangerous areas. Their relatives and friends told them about Maine and a good number moved there to keep their families safe and to seek their fortunes there. The letter from the Somali-American tells of his pride that two Somali-Americans were elected to the Maine legislature and that the former state governor, who had hateful words for the black and immigrant communities, was defeated.

Through this election, people in Maine “felt inspired and both those we have elected and those of us who elected them feel proud and partnered in the joys and hopes of others.” This was “the best Christmas gift I could have wished for…” “With the help Maine’s different communities, we can all create the state we want to live in together without worrying that someday someone will tell us that we are foreigners.” (“A happy ending to 2022 for Maine’s immigrants,” by Abdi Nor Iftn, The Forecaster, 11/25/2022).

In the 19th century Maine witnessed a deep prejudice against the Catholic Quebecois who moved down from Canada to work in the mills. Few in the U.S. realize that the Ku Klux Klan was alive in Maine up into the 1930’s, stirring-up hatred against Catholic Franco-Americans. It is good to see that many of today’s voters were influenced by the Spirit to welcome the refugees that all might become one.

The questions that our Scripture readings today pose are “Who am I called to welcome? What wounds can I help to bind up? What blindness affects me and my community and will I let in the Spirit to help me to see? Can I take St. Paul’s admonition to heart – “Do not complain, brothers and sisters, about one another, that you may not be judged.”?

Can I trust my fears to the Lord? Do I want to see the desert bloom and the Lord’s peace triumph? Perhaps part of my Advent prayer can be: Lord, help me to see and to trust.

In Nor Iftin’s ”happy ending”, his conclusion says, Maine’s immigrant students will return to classes motivated to be involved in Maine….because they see how to contribute. Just like the Somali proverb says, “They have mountains to lean on. With the help of Maine’s different communities, we can all create the state we want to live in together, without worrying that someday, someone will tell us that we are foreigners”.