Maine Mayor Tells Somali Muslims To Assimilate

I was recently in Portland, Maine and was quite surprised to discover that all the housekeeping staff in my motel were Somali Muslims. Though bedecked in their hijabs, most did show some arm skin from the elbow down; I suppose when you're cleaning toilets keeping long sleeves clean would be a chore. I saw a few more scattered throughout the city, so I googled Somalis in Maine and discovered that Lewiston, Maine has a sizable Somali population. They started arriving there about 11 or so years ago, and now number around  6,000. Lewiston's total population is a little under 37,000. That's a little over 15%.  I knew Minnesota had a very large Somali community, but was surprised to find so many in Maine.

Ironically, the day I arrived home I found the following video in my YouTube subscription channel. Lewiston Mayor Bob MacDonald is in the news again for calling upon the Somalis to assimilate.

"If you want to come in here and you want to celebrate your holidays, I don't care, I don't care. Just don't try to insert your culture, which obviously isn't working, into ours, which does."

And he's absolutely right. When we move to countries like Saudi Arabia women are forced to assimilate immediately by being required to wear head scarves and abayas. Their women should be required to do the same thing in the West. No-one is asking them to totally give up their culture, but Lewiston is not in Somalia, and they should at least try to integrate.

Even though the women at the motel weren't very friendly, I still left them a nice tip.