{"id":3000,"date":"2010-04-21T17:53:53","date_gmt":"2010-04-21T17:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hub-dev.bates.edu\/magazine\/?page_id=3000"},"modified":"2017-09-06T11:44:22","modified_gmt":"2017-09-06T15:44:22","slug":"somalis-in-lewiston","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/back-issues\/y2003\/spring03\/features\/somalis-in-lewiston\/","title":{"rendered":"Somalis in Lewiston"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>A bike ride downtown began Ryan Heffernan&#8217;s photographic exploration of Lewiston&#8217;s Somali community.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Photo Essay by Ryan Heffernan &#8217;05<\/p>\n<p>The son of a commercial photographer and film director, Ryan Heffernan &#8217;05 came to Bates wanting to expand his own photography. He scarcely expected to discover a photojournalist&#8217;s dream story five minutes off campus.<\/p>\n<p>During his first year, he started reading news stories about the Somali migration to Lewiston from Atlanta (Somalis fleeing their homeland&#8217;s civil war first settled in larger U.S. cities before moving to smaller and, from their perspective, safer communities). &#8220;I realized the golden opportunity I had, from a photographic standpoint,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I had to jump at it.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\t\t<style type=\"text\/css\">\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 {\n\t\t\t\tmargin: auto;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-item {\n\t\t\t\tfloat: left;\n\t\t\t\tmargin-top: 10px;\n\t\t\t\ttext-align: center;\n\t\t\t\twidth: 25%;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 img {\n\t\t\t\tborder: 2px solid #cfcfcf;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-caption {\n\t\t\t\tmargin-left: 0;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t\/* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes\/media.php *\/\n\t\t<\/style>\n\t\t<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-3000 gallery-columns-4 gallery-size-thumbnail'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/files\/2010\/04\/somalis-01.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/files\/2010\/04\/somalis-01-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/files\/2010\/04\/somalis-02.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/files\/2010\/04\/somalis-02-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/files\/2010\/04\/somalis-03.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/files\/2010\/04\/somalis-03-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/files\/2010\/04\/somalis-04.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/files\/2010\/04\/somalis-04-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/files\/2010\/04\/somalis-05.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/files\/2010\/04\/somalis-05-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/files\/2010\/04\/somalis-06.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/files\/2010\/04\/somalis-06-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/files\/2010\/04\/somalis-07.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/files\/2010\/04\/somalis-07-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/files\/2010\/04\/somalis-08.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/files\/2010\/04\/somalis-08-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/files\/2010\/04\/somalis-09.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/files\/2010\/04\/somalis-09-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl>\n\t\t\t<br style='clear: both' \/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>At first, Heffernan says, he would ride his bike downtown to the Kennedy Park area, park it, and walk around with his camera. &#8220;Sometimes I took photos. Sometimes I put my camera down and played basketball with the kids.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>To tell a story, a journalist requires access, a truth that predates &#8220;embeds&#8221; in Iraq and even Boswell&#8217;s dinners with Samuel Johnson. For Heffernan, access to the Somali community would be doubly challenging. A homogeneous Islamic culture, Somalis are wary of outsiders. Their wariness intensified during 2002-03, especially in the media-frenzied aftermath of the Lewiston mayor&#8217;s open letter asking the Somalis &#8220;to please pass the word&#8221; and stop settling in Lewiston. Some saw racist overtones in the letter, and the media arrived en masse.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s hard for any media person to cover this story because of the nature of the Somali community,&#8221; Heffernan says. He recalls free-lance journalist Amy Toensing telling him how she was &#8220;looking forward to an assignment in New Jersey \u2018where it&#8217;s not excruciatingly difficult to even talk somebody into letting you go with them to the park to take their picture.&#8217; A lot of that difficulty stems from excessive media coverage.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But as a student, Heffernan was greeted with less suspicion. &#8220;Lewiston is a very small town [fewer than 36,000] and the Somali population is even smaller [1,100]. I think it got out there that I was a student from Bates, that I was doing this project for myself, not for anything else,&#8221; he says. &#8220;I remember talking to Roda [Osman Abdi, owner of the Somali A&amp;R Halal Market]. She said to me, \u2018I remember when I was in college, so no problem.&#8217; The fact that you&#8217;re a student can be a very big asset in terms of people realizing that you&#8217;re not out there trying to expose them.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>With the luxury of time and a Bates outlook that valued establishing relationships over selling images, he embarked on a documentary journey, shooting countless rolls of color negative film with his Leica M6. He didn&#8217;t know what would come of his efforts (he would ultimately hang a show in Chase Hall), but knew the project had captured him fully. &#8220;I remember always feeling guilty when I wouldn&#8217;t go to shoot,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Heffernan volunteered at the Lewiston Adult Learning Center in the ESL classroom. He also became good friends with a Somali family: Zam Zam Mohamed and her son and daughter, Hanann and Jama. He met Mohamed at a downtown support rally for the Somali community last October. &#8220;I was taking pictures,&#8221; he says. &#8220;She gave me a hard time, in a joking way.&#8221; A friendship developed, Heffernan eventually enjoying meals at their home and many visits with her and her children.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Hanann and Jama were a huge help,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They were just open and fun. Kids are always easy to photograph. They&#8217;re innocent. There aren&#8217;t the cultural ties and issues that arise when you photograph adults.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A photographer walks a fine line of whether you&#8217;re invading&#8221; someone&#8217;s privacy, Heffernan adds. &#8220;But once I got to know people, and they became familiar with me, things got easier in terms of access and them being comfortable.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A studio art major with a secondary concentration in Spanish, Heffernan comes to Bates from Napa, Calif. He&#8217;ll spend his junior year in Seville, Spain, and Mendoza, Argentina \u2014 exotic and stimulating locales for a photographer, to be sure. Yet it will be lessons learned in Lewiston that he takes abroad. &#8220;The more you shoot, the more you see what works and doesn&#8217;t,&#8221; he says. &#8220;You try to tell your story from what you&#8217;ve got, but you&#8217;re never truly done.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s easy for a photographer to be intrigued by another culture, he adds, because it &#8220;just opens your eyes and visually stimulates you. That&#8217;s the challenge when you&#8217;re not shooting things like that, to bring that mentality into everyday life. Look at the trite in a different way, and it can become beautiful.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A bike ride downtown began Ryan Heffernan&#8217;s photographic exploration of Lewiston&#8217;s Somali&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":0,"parent":2999,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_dimp_site_id":"","_dimp_override_contact":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"class_list":["post-3000","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3000"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13346,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3000\/revisions\/13346"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}