The Letter

A frustrating lack of details compromise this much-needed look at how the promise of American diversity failed a community of Somali refugees in a large Maine town. Until the arrival of the Somalis in the mid-90s — escapees from the civil unrest that had claimed the lives of many of their family members — Lewiston, Maine, was a overwhelmingly white factory town whose fortunes were tied to those of the now-closed Bates textile mill. Worried about jobs, housing and their futures, the largely Franco-American residents of Lewiston extended an uneasy welcome to the newcomers. The images of dead American soldiers being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu by ...