Fatima Saidi is the director of We Are All America at the National Partnership for New Americans. Born in Afghanistan, she came to the U.S. as an international student at Bates College and now lives with her family in Auburn. She previously served as the development and membership manager at the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition.
The past few months have been incredibly cold in Maine. It wasn’t just our notorious winters, but a coldness I felt inside that left my heart completely frozen.
I first arrived here in 2013 and fell in love with this state and its people. I was no longer wandering. Maine became my home.
When attacks on immigrants and refugees escalated into a federal operation designed specifically to ridicule our state, a heavy fear settled over me. I saw people being taken on their way to work, mothers being dragged away in front of their children and teenagers being pulled off the football field. It made my entire body turn cold.
This was much deeper than the chill you feel walking down the road when it’s windy and snowing. It went past skin deep. It was an attack on my belief in Maine and my belief in America. It was an attack on my chosen homeland, the one I’ve worked so hard to become a part of.
Everywhere I went, I felt the chill in my heart. Walking down the aisles of the grocery store or taking an afternoon stroll in my neighborhood, I was nervous. I found myself smiling bigger at the people I passed, showing more teeth than is natural for me, wondering if they even wanted me there or if I was just a call away from coming face to face with immigration enforcement. Though I’m a naturalized U.S. citizen, fear doesn’t care about a passport.
But Maine, and America, I am not giving up on you. You are my home, for now and forever. Our state motto is “Vacationland.” By definition, we are a state that welcomes people, whether they are here for a weekend, a season or to build a life. Welcoming people is what we do — what we’ve been doing for a very long time.
Just recently, I was in Washington, D.C., alongside 300 refugee and immigrant advocates from across America. As I stood there in the Capitol, I felt an overwhelming wave of pride to represent my state. I was proud to represent Mainers. This is a state that allows people who have gone through the absolute brutality of life, people who have crossed continents and oceans, a safe space to heal and rebuild. That is the true spirit of Maine.
In 2022, Maine opened its arms to my own family, including my mom and my siblings, who fled Kabul on the eve of its fall to the Taliban. Today, because of that safety, my family has thrived. One of my siblings graduated with a degree in computer science, another graduated with a double major in math and physics and is heading to an Ivy League school to pursue a Ph.D. in quantum physics. My brother graduated as a mechanical engineer, and my two youngest siblings are currently attending a college in Maine.
My family’s story is not unique. There are so many immigrant and refugee communities across our state thriving in the exact same way. Our state is better, richer and stronger because we give refuge to people who need it.
As I commemorate the Fourth of July, the birthday of our nation, with my family, I want to express my deepest gratitude to my fellow Mainers. I’m incredibly thankful for our neighbors who marched in the streets for immigrant rights, those who have persistently contacted our senators and representatives and those who went shopping on behalf of immigrant and refugee families when we could not.
I am grateful to everyone who’s donated their time, resources and warmth to immigrant and refugee-led organizations and legal defense groups. Above all, I am grateful to the people who looked at us and said, “I see you as a human being, and I want you to stay.” After all, isn’t that the very principle upon which the United States was founded? I believe that, with all its flaws, our country was built to be a home for the tired and the refugee, where all people would be equal.
Our beautiful state has a rich history of opening its hearts and doors to people fleeing global crises, from world war refugees to the French Canadians who came to build lives here generations ago. The houses they built are now being used by the new refugees arriving in Maine.
This Independence Day, let us celebrate the courage it takes to build a community where everyone can live warmly, openly and without fear. We Mainers shall survive this winter together, shoulder to shoulder.