LEWISTON – Maine is commonly referred to as the whitest state in the nation. But that description can be misleading, a local anthropologist said Thursday.

“One of the things that we forget is ethnic heritage,” Heather Lindkvist told a packed audience at this month’s Great Falls Forum. “There are so many different ethnic groups that we ignore. Maine is not homogeneous.”

A lecturer at Bates College and an expert in Somali culture and politics, Lindkvist made that point in her speech about how immigration has affected Lewiston.

The Somalis who live in Lewiston stand out because they are not white, she said. But their reasons for being here and the changes that they have already made in the community are similar to those of other immigrants who settled here in the past.

With time, the Somalis have become a part of the community in the same way that the Irish, French Canadian, Polish and Lithuanian people have.

Ethnoscape

To prove her point, Lindkvist talked about “ethnoscape,” a term used to describe a perspective on a particular place or society based on the role of different cultural groups in that area.

Ethnoscape, Lindkvist said, can be defined by both physical objects, such as shops and restaurants, and more abstract signs, such as language.

Three years after Somalis started arriving in Lewiston, they have opened their own restaurant, markets and a mosque.

These buildings and businesses now blend with churches and organizations started by Franco-Americans, including Saints Peter and Paul Church and the Franco-American Heritage Center, and the Lithuanians’ Lithu Hall on Lisbon Street.

The fact that this year’s Festival de Joie featured a Somali stand, where local Somalis cooked and sold Somali food, is another example of the changing ethnoscape.

During any given day, Lindkvist continued, someone can walk down Lisbon Street and hear people speaking English, French, Spanish and Somali.

These are common changes that happen with “the global flow of immigrants,” Lindkvist told the audience.

Values

Somalis first started coming to the United States in the early 1980s. Back then, Lindkvist said, they were mostly wealthy people who came by choice to get an education.

In 1991, after civil war broke out in Somalia, thousands of Somalis came to this country as refugees. They were placed in big cities, such as Boston, Chicago and Seattle.

For many Somalis, the move from these big cities to Lewiston was the first time they were able to choose when and where they would move.

“This was an opportunity for them to create a space where they could raise children in a way that would conform to their values,” Lindkvist said.

One audience member asked Lindkvist to explain how Somalis want their children to become American citizens but they don’t want them to adopt the American way of life.

Lindkvist responded with a story. She talked about a time when she was driving in a car with a Somali man, and he pointed to a billboard of a young woman advertising cigarettes in a skimpy outfit.

“The man said to me, ‘I don’t want my daughter to look like that,'” Lindkvist said.

A white man sitting at a table in the back of the room nodded his head and said under his breath, “Neither do I.”

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