Ethnic Bangor Rediscovering Our City’s past

loading...

One evening this summer, I had an errand to run at the Bangor Mall. I couldn’t easily find what I needed and ended up walking through the entire complex. By the time I had completed the loop, I had spoken to four black men, an Iranian family, a Korean woman and a Filipino woman. The person who sold me the girl’s dress I finally purchased was from Texas; she was Mexican-American.

When I moved to Maine 25 years ago from a primarily black neighborhood in Washington, D.C., I had the reverse experience of Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz”: I had a feeling I was in Kansas. I had never seen a place so white.

I’m pretty sure the multicultural shopping experience I had this summer wasn’t available back then. But in the late 19th century, Bangor had a larger immigrant population – Italians, Greeks, Poles, Germans, Lebanese, Russians, Irish, Chinese, Scandinavians and Canadians – that made up 17 percent of the city’s residents. Of course, that doesn’t include the indigenous Indians who were here before any of us.

In a six-part series, “Ethnic Bangor,” which begins today as an insert in the Bangor Daily News, historian and writer Wayne Reilly looks back at the lumber baron days when the area drew immigrants for work in the woods industry or for the economy that rose up because of it. I like to think that others came to Maine because it was beautiful and wild, and perhaps because it reminded them of their far distant homes across one ocean or another. Or because it held the promise of fulfilling a singular American dream.

Today people move to Maine primarily for work, school, family or retirement. Most of them still are white. And while we’ve all noticed changes in Bangor – a wider variety of foods available at the market and a call for Thai and Japanese restaurants – the new influx of diversity seems to have expanded from a European tradition to include Mexican, Central American, Puerto Rican, Middle Eastern, Indian, Southeast Asian and Bronx influences.

Joe Perry, president of the Greater Bangor Area NAACP, moved to Searsport in 1974 from Nantucket, Mass., for a “quieter way of life.” Perry’s Portuguese parents moved to the United States from Cape Verde; his wife’s family moved to Brooklyn, N.Y., from Jamaica.

“There are more of us people of color here now than when I first came,” said Perry.

And yet, he added, most of the members of the local NAACP are white. Or, as he put it, Caucasian.

Perry says he has never been mistreated by neighbors or friends, but he knows others who have been. In fact, he said, racially motivated misbehavior and even crimes seem to be on the rise in Bangor.

But not dramatically, said Peter Arno, deputy chief at the Bangor Police Department. In fact, Arno used the word “occasionally” to describe the incidents that make headlines: the teens who threw rocks and shouted racial slurs at a black woman walking her dog along the waterfront in March, and an elderly Brewer man who this month allegedly threatened to shoot attendees of NAACP meetings in Bangor.

Arno has been on the force 20 years and, even since the U.S. Census in 2000 when Bangor’s white population was recorded at 95 percent, he has noticed a change in the face of Bangor.

“As we become more diverse, we’re seeing incidents – not necessarily crimes but incidents – whether they be racial epithets or crimes motivated by hate,” said Arno. “But if people lack tolerance, they’re going to need to come around or go someplace else. This is the world in which we live.”

Angel Martinez Loredo has been in the area for eight years. He moved to Bangor from Texas with his wife and two children to become associate dean of students at the University of Maine in Orono. The Loredos also wanted to raise their children in an area with a slower pace than Houston.

“During my interview for this job, I felt the people here were very genuine and honest about learning about cultures,” said Loredo, who is Mexican-American. His parents were born in Mexico, where he spent much of his childhood after being born in Dallas.

Loredo has noticed that the immersion of nonwhite students in a mostly white world often has increased their appreciation for the lives they left behind in urban centers.

“They learn to value their culture,” said Loredo. “When you’re in Maine, things stand still and you get a chance to think. It’s a good academic experience, but it also gives students of color an opportunity to evaluate their culture.”

At home, Loredo tries to speak Spanish with his children, and the family takes advantage of the increased availability of foods – chilies and La Costena products – that weren’t on local market shelves when he first arrived.

Not everyone would embrace the mission, but Loredo thinks it’s important for people of color, especially students, to take the opportunity to help educate others about diversity. They come here for their own education, but they also bring a world of education with them; Loredo’s work is twofold: to increase public awareness and to support the people of color on campus.

The day at the mall, I met Jhamal Fonellen, a 22-year-old black man from Buffalo, N.Y. Fonellen is on a full football scholarship at the University of Maine, where he is earning a degree in child and family studies. He was one of 79 blacks among the nearly 12,000 students on campus last year.

“I felt like I was welcomed here with open arms,” said Fonellen, who lives on campus.

He grew up in a diverse neighborhood of whites, blacks and Hispanics, so the mix never has been a problem for him. His friends in Maine come from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. What he wasn’t prepared for when he first arrived was the stares from strangers. In the beginning, he didn’t know how to interpret the attention. Did they think he had done something wrong? Had he done something wrong?

Fonellen is accustomed to the stares now, and simply ignores them. “I’d rather people just come talk to me rather than stare at me all the time,” he said.

When I asked whether he might consider staying in Maine after college, he paused. And his answer was the same as nearly every college student I have ever met: “Maybe. But not right after college. Maybe somewhere down the road.”

Alicia Anstead may be reached at aanstead@bangordailynews.net.

Part 1 today Bangor was once a bright beacon for thousands of immigrants

Insert with historic map

Part 2 Monday The Italians: Building the railroads and the mills

Click It! For a historic, interactive map, visit bangordailynews.com