Word: lewiston
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Hussein was skeptical, but Samsam loaded the kids in a rental car and headed north. Soon after she arrived in Portland, a social worker told her there were vacant houses in nearby Lewiston. "Do they have a school there?" Mohamed asked. "A medical doctor? Groceries?" They did. "Then I'll go," she said...
Which is how Mohamed became among the first of some 1,100 Somalis who moved into this declining former mill town of 36,000 in just the past 1 1/2 years. Lewiston's mostly white, working-class residents were gracious at first. But as more and more Somalis streamed into the city, some of the natives began to grumble...
...only knowledge most had about Somalia was from Black Hawk Down--Ridley Scott's graphic depiction of the 1993 raid in which Somali militias killed 18 U.S. soldiers, including one from a town that borders Lewiston. It didn't help that many Somalis are dependent on social services, taxing the already limited resources of the city. "I don't know what kind of grants the Somalis are getting, but they seem to be at the top of the list," says Linda Hubbard, 42, who moved from Lewiston to nearby Auburn. "A lot of us are just getting...
Tensions first flared at Lewiston High School when nearly 80 new Somali students showed up for the first day of class last fall. More than 100 students, up from 20 the previous year, enrolled in English-as-a-second-language classes. Rumors spread that the Somalis, who are mainly Muslims, were washing their feet in the school water fountain before they prayed. Then fights broke out in the cafeteria between natives and newcomers. Friends told Mohamed's daughter Hibat, 14, that their parents wanted the Somalis to go back home...
...discipline and reduce the stress on our limited finances and our generosity," he wrote. "Now we need breathing room." The Somali leaders, in turn, accused the mayor of being a bigot. The spat made headlines around the world and prompted Somalis abroad to check in on their friends in Lewiston...