Every year when Black History Month rolls around, Shontay Delalue cringes. As one of a small number of black students and staff at the University of Maine, she knows she’ll have to put together a presentation and participate in panel discussions.

Such is the life of a person from a minority ethnic or racial group in Maine, one of the least diverse states in America. According to figures released last week by the U.S. Census Bureau, Maine’s population is 97 percent white. There are 6,760 black residents statewide. That’s one half of one percent of the state’s population. Nationally, 70 percent of U.S. residents identify themselves as white non-Hispanic, according to Census figures released last week.

“It’s frustrating because you become the only one in a classroom, the only one in a dorm,” said Delalue, who enrolled at UM sight unseen. She and a friend rode 10 hours on a Greyhound bus from her home in New Jersey. Although it was August, they were clad in their winter coats because they had heard it was cold and the sun never shone in Maine.

When she arrived in 1996, there were 65 black students at UM, more than double the amount a decade earlier. In 1999, the last year figures are available, there were 76. The university, which attracts students from around the world, is a bit more diverse than the state as a whole, with 5 percent of its student body consisting of minorities. Another 2 percent are students from foreign countries.

When she graduated last spring, Delalue planned to high-tail it out of Maine back to a place where there were more people like herself. But, she was offered a job as an admissions counselor, charged with recruiting more students like herself, and stayed in Orono, although she still travels to Boston to get her hair done and to eat food like that which she grew up with.

Despite the low numbers, Maine’s minority population is increasing, especially in the southern part of the state. In 1990, Maine was 98 percent white. Portland, the state’s largest city, remained its most diverse as well, with 8 percent of its people identifying themselves as something other than white. One elementary school in Portland reports that 50 different languages are spoken there. One reason for the increase in Portland is the federal Refugee Resettlement Program, which places 250 people from other countries there each year.

Pockets of diversity

Although the state is among the whitest in the country, pockets of diversity exist. Not surprisingly, many of the state’s most diverse communities are also current or former homes to military bases. The armed services have long been more diverse than the U.S. population as a whole. For example, Limestone and Brunswick, had larger minority populations than the state average, yet even in these communities, minority groups made up less than 10 percent of the total population.

Washington County, home to two of the state’s Indian reservations and blueberry barrens where many Hispanics work, was the state’s least white county, with 93.5 percent of its residents identifying themselves as white. Coastal Lincoln County was the most white at 98.5 percent.

Once the state’s largest minority group, American Indians now make up one-half of 1 percent of the state’s population. While the number of people living on the state’s three large Indian reservations grew from 1990 to 2000,more American Indians live off the reservations. Of the 7,098 American Indians, only 1,608 live at the Penobscot Nation and the Passamaquoddy reservations of Indian Township and Pleasant Point. In the past decade the number of American Indians in Maine grew 18 percent from 5,998 in 1990. The U.S. Census Bureau does not provide information about the Micmac and Maliseet populations, although the federal government also recognizes these tribes.

Donald Soctomah, the State House representative of the Passamaquoddy Tribe, said more people are moving back to the reservations because medical services have improved and more jobs are available. In addition, he said, more people are interested in claiming their Indian heritage, something made easier by the revised 2000 Census form, which allowed people to claim they were of many races.

Because of changes in the way the Census categorized race, it is impossible to make direct comparisons to past years. In 2000, people had the option of checking off more than one race, increasing the number of categories from five to 63. In addition, Hispanics were considered an ethnic, not racial, group. That means someone could say they were a Hispanic black Puerto Rican or a non-Hispanic white Korean, for example.

Not that much of this mattered in Maine, where only 1 percent of people said they were multiracial, with the most common combinations being white American Indians. Statewide, 31 people said there were a combination of five races.

The state’s Hispanic population did increase 37 percent from 6,829 in 1990 to 9,630 in 2000. It is projected to more than double by 2025, when 20,000 Mainers are expected to be of minority origin. At the same time, the state’s minority population is expected to grow to 4 percent of the state’s total population.

Not on immigration wave

Like other rural states, Maine is not part of the national trend of burgeoning minority populations leading to huge gains in population. Where immigration is responsible for double-digit growth in some southwestern and western states, few people from Latin America, Mexico and Asia are making it to Maine. In California, for example, non-Hispanic whites became the minority for the first time since the census began keeping accurate numbers in 1860.

“The state is historically not attractive to minorities which account for growth elsewhere,” said Richard Sherwood of the State Planning Office. “It is a matter of history and geography.”

He said immigrants go to where their friends and relatives are. For Asians, this means the West Coast and for Hispanics it is along the southern border and in Florida. Eventually, immigrants spread out and will make their way to Maine, Sherwood said.

Charles Colgan, a professor of public policy and management at the University of Southern Maine, agreed. He noted that a group of Somalis recently left Portland for Lewiston due to rising housing costs in Maine’s largest city. The history of immigrants, he said, is that they don’t stay in one place for very long, eventually spreading out to other parts of the state and country.

In addition, he said the state’s Hispanic population is much higher than people think. He said many Hispanics work planting trees, collecting and processing sea urchins and tending eggs. Although many of these jobs are held by migrant workers, he said, many of these workers like the area and choose to stay. In fact, Milbridge, a coastal Washington County community, has a fairly high minority population.

But, he added: “It’s not like we’re going to have Spanish signs on everything like they do in some parts of the country.”

However, one doctor’s office in Bangor recently began offering a telephone recording in Spanish as well as the customary English.

But, the small numbers of racial and ethnic minority groups don’t stop the state from touting its diversity. A diversity day will be held at the State House today. The University of Maine System recently announced that it had awarded $25,000 in grants to 10 projects statewide, ranging from studies of the Franco-American experience in Maine to African-American activism in Portland.

Differences stand out

With so little diversity, those who are different stand out.

Edward Wallace, a student at University College of Bangor who organized a two-day diversity conference there last month, recently recalled an incident last summer when he was hanging out on the front lawn of a friend’s house in Eddington. A truck drove slowly by. As the man riding in the truck bed caught site of Wallace, he banged on the truck’s cab to alert his friends. “There goes a nigger. There goes a nigger,” the man said.

Despite incidents of what he calls “ignorance,” Maine people do not seem to be outwardly racist, Wallace said. Where he grew up in Boston, a beer bottle was once tossed at him, an event that was repeated in Las Vegas, where a white motorist also tried to run him down.

He does, however, get sick of two questions (both of which this reporter asked) – why is he here in Maine? and does he like it here? His answers: He came to Maine for the same reason many other people do – safety and a good education. He plans to enroll at UM in the fall to study English and eventually become a writer living in a cottage on a lake.

And, yes he likes it here, except for the weather.

All this means a lot of challenges for the University of Maine, which strives to provide students with a broad education that includes interaction with people from a variety of backgrounds.

“We need to be more diverse, but for many of our undergraduates this is the most diverse place they’ve seen,” said Evelyn Silver, director of equal opportunity at the university where 80 percent of the students come from Maine.

She said the school has a responsibility to educate its students about different races and cultures, because its graduates will work in environments much more diverse than those they came from. Still, Silver said, it is difficult to recruit and retain teachers and students to a place where they will not see many other people like themselves.

By and large, Shontay Delalue said her experience in Maine has been a good one. Because of her color, she helped start a group for minority students and served on a council with the university president, experiences she likely wouldn’t have had at a campus with more blacks.

She’s also gotten used to small children staring at her in the grocery store and at the mall. But, the ignorance of adults still troubles her.

“I’m surprised that adults comment on seeing a black person,” she said.

“But, if you’re 40-years-old and this is the first black person you ever saw, how else would you react,” she wondered aloud.