July 16, 2002
Source: The Boston Globe
On July 16, 2002 The Boston Globe featured an article on the new Somali immigrant community in the small town of Lewiston, Maine. A "converted storefront is the mosque for Lewiston's 1,200 Somali immigrants, part of a growing wave of African Muslims who have moved to this old mill city in a sudden, swift migration that has no current parallel in the United States... Lewiston is [now] known worldwide among the Somali diaspora as a welcoming, affordable place to settle and raise a family... Still, in a state that prides itself on tolerance and self-reliance, the sudden presence of more than 1,000 new neighbors from a starkly different culture has spawned ugly rumors and prompted tough questions."