Stories of recent immigrants are told in 'New Mainers'

A new book tells the story of 29 immigrants in Maine and shows how diverse that state is. Also how important the immigrant population is. DP

BY KELLEY BOUCHARD, Maine Sunday Telegram

Hooria Majeed's world was shattered one day when she opened the back door of her home in Kabul, Afghanistan.

She discovered the body of her husband, Abdul Karim, shot in the chest and dumped on the doorstep by the Taliban shortly after they seized control of her country in 1996.

Her husband was an accomplished artist who refused to stop creating the paintings and sculptures that were his passion and his livelihood. She was a nurse who could no longer leave the house to shop for food, never mind go to work, without covering herself from head to toe in a burqa and fearing for her safety with every step.

In one horrible instant, she and her three young sons were alone in a city where they were now considered infidels. She screamed with terror at the sight of her dead husband. She pummeled her arms and legs black and blue in her grief.

"I had no husband, no brother to look out for me," Majeed recalled recently in her apartment in Portland's East End. Her son, Sediq, was her interpreter.

"I could be beaten just for being outside alone," she said. "It was a big problem."

Majeed is one of 29 people featured in "New Mainers: Portraits of Our Immigrant Neighbors," a new book that will be released Feb. 27 at a reception at the University of Southern Maine. She and her boys arrived here in 2002 after spending several years living as refugees in Pakistan.

The book contains 25 profiles and photographs of individuals and couples who came to Maine in the last few decades.

They hail from every hemisphere and represent the changing face of a state whose population has been largely white for a long time. They are men and women, professionals and laborers, artists and athletes, each carrying compelling stories of their pasts and making significant contributions in their new home.

"Maine's immigrant population is small, but it's one of the most diverse in the nation," said Pat Nyhan, author of the 25 profiles. "We wanted to discover who these immigrants are, to get to know them as people and learn how they came to live here."
Be sure to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.