Officials meet with Somalis to boost ties

A request for a federal review of Lewiston's programs and services for Somalis and other immigrants will be filed sometime next week, according to the advocate who will be writing the formal complaint to the Justice Department.

Kathy Poulos-Minott, who heads a Portland-based group that advocates for the rights of people who speak limited English, said the complaint would focus on issues such as lack of training for city employees and inconsistencies in policies and procedures across departments.

"You can't have one policy at one department and then no policy at another department," said Poulos-Minott, founder and director of the National Limited English Proficient Advocacy Task Force. "There has to be consistency and training. These places always assure compliance on paper. That's simple. The reality is when you get out there and you test it. Is it really happening?"

Lewiston city officials met with Somali elders Thursday at the public library to try to mend fences after a letter from Mayor Laurier Raymond angered and offended the local Somali community last week. The letter, referring to an increased flow of Somali immigrants into Lewiston, asked the local Somali community to "exercise some discipline and reduce the stress on our limited finances and generosity."

The Lewiston police chief and other police officials attended the meeting, as well as two city councilors, Roger Philippon and Renee Bernier. Several Somali elders were present, including some who typically work with city officials through the Somali advisory committee.

"The meeting was very encouraging, but there's more work to be done," said Phil Nadeau, assistant city administrator.

The Somali elders who attended the meeting had no comment as they left the library.

Winston McGill, vice president of the Portland chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said he met with a Somali elder Thursday and pledged the organization's support. He also has written an open letter of support to the Somali community that will be delivered next week.

The New England conference of the NAACP, which represents all of the region's NAACP branches, also has pledged its support.

McGill said he spoke with officials at the Justice Department in Boston on Thursday to voice his concerns directly to the federal agency. He asked for a community liaison who could act as a mediator between the city of Lewiston and the Somali community.

"It's not really so much an investigation," he said. "What that community liaison will do is they'll bring everybody to the table and work out these issues, whether it's housing or jobs - what the mayor should have done and what he didn't do."

McGill said it's "too premature" to say his organization will support the effort by Poulos-Minott to have a federal review of Lewiston's programs and services.

Poulos-Minott's group represents 300 "stakeholders" nationwide. They are primarily legal organizations dedicated to supporting the anti-discrimination laws that ensure immigrants and refugees have access to interpreters and other services that put them on equal footing in schools, hospitals and the halls of city government.

"Many schools bring unqualified interpreters, if they bring any at all, into disciplinary hearings or school-based health care," she said. "They take medical histories, they dispense medication without interpreters."

Federal law prohibits discrimination on the basis of national origin through statutes such as Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Poulos-Minott said her organization tries to work with recipients of federal funding before filing a federal complaint or pursuing litigation. In the past, she has fought Maine Medical Center over the quality of its interpreter services, and she has cases pending against the Maine Department of Human Services, the Portland Housing Authority and Catholic Charities Maine.

She said Lewiston did not adequately plan for the arrival of so many Somalis into the community.

Nadeau said putting programs and services in place for the new arrivals has involved "almost heroic levels of work."

"We want to do more than just meet the marginal need," he said. "If there are places that we need to make improvements, we try to identify those areas as quickly as possible and try to be responsive to those areas and make those adjustments that we need to make."

Ex-Mayor Tara: Raymond ‘should apologize’

This city “has a tremendous opportunity” to show the nation and the world that it’s a welcoming place for everyone, said former Mayor Kaileigh Tara.

Seizing that opportunity shouldn’t be difficult, she said, but it requires leadership, understanding and compassion.

“I wanted to cry” after reading Mayor Larry Raymond’s open letter to Somali residents here last week, Tara said. “I did cry” after reading some letters to the editor endorsing his position that Lewiston is “maxed out” in terms of its ability to absorb more war refugees from Africa.

Tara was mayor at the time Lewiston was chosen by Somalis as a place to call home. Many of the newcomers had been settled initially in Atlanta. Some said that they found that city to be too violent, too prone to crime. Others said they feared their children could be introduced to drugs by neighbors there.

Lewiston seemed to be a better place, they’ve said, based on the state’s low crime rate. So they began immigrating here, and over the past 18 months, came to total more than 1,000 in number.

Tara said she met with Somali elders and leaders early on in that migration process. She said she found that the Somalis came here for the opportunities Lewiston offered, in housing, education and employment, the same things that brought other people here from other places.

Tara said she doesn’t believe Raymond has had similar conversations with Somalis who have moved here. He should, she added, as a first step toward better understanding.

“It was wrong to send that letter,” she said.

Intentionally or not, Tara said, Raymond’s open letter to the Somali community, which asked that they urge other family members and friends to not follow them here, smacked of racism.

The letter cited costs to the city to provide services for the Somalis. Those costs include general assistance.

The letter was “addressed to people of color,” Tara noted. No one in city government has ever suggested that poor white people not come here, Tara said, that the city couldn’t afford to absorb or provide services for them.

“We’re not full,” Tara said.

She called the Somali response to the letter, which has been extended to include a pending request to the U.S. Justice Department to determine if the city discriminates on the basis of national origin, understandable.

Tara doesn’t believe city government is discriminating against Somalis. Rather, she said the city’s municipal staff has performed wonders both in meeting needs and offering assistance in many ways to Lewiston’s newest residents.

But she says she can understand why Somalis might feel that way. Raymond, after all, is the mayor, she said. He’s the city’s elected leader. He needs to show leadership, she said. He needs to come forward to right a wrong, real or not.

“The mayor should apologize” to the Somali community she said. “He should extend his hand” in welcome.

He – and the entire City Council – should also join her and others in a walk of unity Sunday that’s intended to be a welcome to the Somali community, Tara suggested.

The walk starts at 8:45 a.m. at the Cavalry United Methodist Church. Led by children, marchers will make their way from the Sabattus Street church to Masjid al-Nur, the Lisbon Street mosque where city Somalis meet to pray.

“Where is God in this issue?” Tara asked rhetorically. “God can’t eliminate poverty,” which Tara said is among the root causes of the divisiveness now gripping the city, “but God’s people can.”

Tara said people who feel as she does also need to begin speaking out, and taking actions in other ways, to counter ignorance and hostility that might be race-based.

Recent deeds and words in the city regarding Somalis mean Lewiston “just took a giant step back,” Tara said. The city has a chance to leap forward, though, by taking a positive tack now, by showing Somalis and others that there are people here who care about their neighbors, and who embrace diversity.

Besides taking part in Sunday’s unity walk, Tara said people should invite their neighbors into their homes, “share a pot-luck supper” and get to know one another. Communicating, she said, could ease tensions and promote understanding.

And Mayor Raymond, she added, through his leadership could “set a tone to repair Lewiston’s black eye.”

Everyone else, she said, could help with those repairs by refusing to accept rumors as truth, and resist “spreading those lies.”

Tara said the global spotlight that’s been shined on Lewiston over the past week “breaks my heart. We are capable of so much more.”

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