By Lindsay Tice,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Nasser Rohani was a young man just ending his studies in India when he learned he could never go home again.

He was a native of Iran and his family was there. But Iran’s new Islamic government wouldn’t let him return until he renounced his Baha’i faith and became Muslim. They canceled his passport when he refused. India ordered him out.

“So began my refugee life, my stateless life,” he said.

On Tuesday, Rohani told his story as one of three panelists at the Journey to Lewiston forum presented by the World Affairs Council at Lewiston-Auburn College.

Officials hoped the open forum would allow some longtime residents to share the immigrant experience and would promote unity and diversity. About two dozen people showed for the event.

Rohani eventually won the protection of the United Nations. He married in India, had a daughter. He believed the Islamic government would leave Iran, but by 1985 he realized it was was set to stay. He and his young family immigrated to America.

They moved first to California, then to Maine, where they had friends.

“They said You don’t know what is life. The way life should be right here in Maine,'” Rohani told the audience Tuesday night.

Along with Rohani, speakers included Charles Carnegie, an associate anthropology professor at Bates College who came to America from Jamaica in 1972 and Pierre Teko, a young man who lived in Togo and moved to Maine in 2000.

All three spoke about the challenges – and the joys – they’ve found living a foreign country

“In Lewiston, the first thing I learned when I got here was about snow,” Teko said. “Beautiful.”

During the forum, the men talked about their lives. Teko and Rohani had trouble learning English. Since he came to America as a student, Carnegie had an easy transition, but his wife struggled because she didn’t have a visa to work, didn’t have a car to drive and didn’t know anyone. All three men and their families were thrust into a strange culture with customs they weren’t used to.

Audience members, many of them Somali immigrants, said their American friends often asked them when they were going to become more American while their Somali friends accused them of adopting the American culture too readily.

They asked how the men dealt with assimilation.

All three said they held on to the important values and customs of their culture, but learned to speak English and adopted the Western customs they liked.

“It’s choosing what’s good in each place,” Carnegie said.

All agreed that their religious values remained unchanged.

The forum lasted for more than hour. Many audience members said they liked hearing about the men’s experience. Many said they could relate to the feeling of being an outsider.

Said Susan Bowditch, a Bath resident who has lived in the Philippines, west Africa and other areas across the world, “I think I know, underneath, the kinds of things they were talking about.”