Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America

by Chris Arnade

Next to the skate park in the toddlers’ playground, a young white girl in a white summer dress is playing mother to two younger Somali girls. She is holding their hands, taking them around the playground. She lifts each up and puts them on the swings, then pushes them for fifteen minutes. The two smaller girls are dressed in traditional clothing, their red and pink colors standing out. On a bench I find the mother of the older white girl, and I ask her if I can take a picture of her daughter pushing the younger children. I explain how I love how they are getting along so well and the clash of dress colors. It is a picture I desperately want to take, one to leave me with a sense of hope after hearing and seeing so much misunderstanding, ignorance, and racism. She says no and explains that she doesn’t know who the other kids are and that her daughter always plays mother to younger children. I ask her if she is from around here, and she says, no, she had to move here from another town because of money troubles and what with no man in her life, at least no decent man, she is doing what she can to get by, and if that includes being in Lewiston, then Lewiston it is. Then she adds, “Lewiston is a dump.” While we are talking, her daughter runs up and hears me say how much I like the bright-colored dresses the Somali women wear. Her daughter agrees. “I want to wear those colors. I like them. They are so beautiful.” When she runs off to play, the mother looks at me and says, “Over m...