AUBURN – The heart of a refugee has room for two homes, Khadra Jama said Friday during the local World Refugee Day Maine gathering.

“There is a difference between an immigrant and a refugee,” she told a crowd at the Lewiston Public Library on Friday. Immigrants choose to come to a new country, leaving their old home behind. That’s not always the case for refugees.

“Refugees are here because they are fleeing a place they loved,” Jama said. “They can be settled in second and third countries, often without being consulted.”

But sometimes, they find new homes.

“I found myself falling in love with Lewiston,” she said. “I love walking in the street and talking to people I don’t even know. I love talking to my fellow commuters at the bus stop. And I absolutely love going to community events that range from Martin Luther King Day events at Bates to Maineiacs games at the Colisee.”

Originally from Somalia, Jama and her family emigrated to the United States in 2004. She is studying leadership and sociology at the University of Southern Maine’s Lewiston-Auburn College.

Jama recounted her life in the refugee camps in Kenya and how she learned her family would be allowed to emigrate to the United States.

“This was when I began to envision what my life in America would be like, and let me tell you Donald Trump didn’t have anything over the idea I had in my head,” she said. She imagined the cities where she’d live. The family settled in California briefly before coming to Maine.

“I remember my brother and I riding to Maine, and my only concern was whether Lewiston and Auburn were really big cities,” she said. “I’d come all the way across the country, and I wanted the big, tall buildings. I was looking for those buildings on the bus ride from Portland, and all I saw was trees. And I don’t know if any of you have noticed, there’s not really a tall building in sight.”

She learned to adapt to the weather, to the walks to work that are not on the bus route and to shop clerks who assume she doesn’t speak English or know how to use a debit card.

“In Lewiston, I have found a family that does not look like me, that does not share in my language or my experiences,” she said. “Our experience is rooted in those differences and a willingness to learn from one another.”