Bates College SCARAB Honors Theses Capstone Projects 5-2019 Welcoming New Mainers: Local Economic Development and its Effects on the Politics of Immigration Trevor H. Fry [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scarab.bates.edu/honorstheses Recommended Citation Fry, Trevor H., "Welcoming New Mainers: Local Economic Development and its Effects on the Politics of Immigration" (2019). Honors Theses. 287. https://scarab.bates.edu/honorstheses/287 This Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Capstone Projects at SCARAB. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of SCARAB. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Welcoming New Mainers: Local Economic Development and its Effects on the Politics of Immigration An Honors Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Department of Politics Bates College In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts By Trevor Fry Lewiston, Maine March 20, 2019 Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank my advisor, Stephen Engel, for his incredible support and guidance through this project. Without your sage wisdom, I would not have been able to get this far. Thank you for listening to my ramblings and for helping to get out of the occasional research rut. I would also like to thank the many people I spent hours talking with in the Lewiston and Bates community. Kristen Cloutier, Phil Nadeau, Mary Rice-DeFosse, Lincoln Jeffers, Clarisa Pérez-Armendáriz, Jon Baughman, and Senem Aslan all were instrumental to me throughout this entire process. My friends have also been amazing sources of support and have been there for me through thick and thin. To Laura, I can’t even begin to describe how integral you were to this thesis. Finally, I would like to thank my family for their continued support throughout my entire four years at Bates – without you, none of this would have been possible. ii Abstract This thesis examines the policy and rhetoric directed toward immigrants from elite municipal actors in Maine’s two largest metropolitan areas: Lewiston and Portland. These cities, situated in one of the least diverse states in the nation, have recently seen large changes to their demographic makeups. While both share a similar history, in recent years they have diverged in terms of their politicians’ policy and rhetoric toward immigrants. The scholarship on immigration in the United States suggests that certain factors, such as the levels of economic anxiety present in an area, the existence of a so-called “creative class,” and an infrastructure of support services can influence how receptive a city’s existing residents may be to anti-immigrant rhetoric. This thesis employs a historical institutionalist framework emphasizing critical junctures, path dependency, and political entrepreneurship to account for the distinct economic development undertaken in Lewiston and Portland since the mid-twentieth century. By analyzing the histories of Maine’s two largest cities and the norm-breaking behavior of the former Governor of Maine, Paul LePage, this thesis offers an explanation as to why anti-immigrant rhetoric is more salient in certain locales. iii Table of Contents Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................... ii Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iii Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 1 The Plan of this Thesis ........................................................................................................................... 7 Chapter One - Literature Review ................................................................................................. 12 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 12 1. The Construction of Race and the Immigrant Other .................................................................... 15 2. Outgroup versus. Ingroup Dynamics: The Immigrant as the “Other” ....................................... 22 3. Economic Threat ............................................................................................................................... 25 4. The Presence of a Creative Class .................................................................................................... 31 4.A Attracting the Creative Class ........................................................................................................................35 4.B Creative Class Members and Immigration ...................................................................................................37 5. Normalization of Right-Wing Rhetoric .......................................................................................... 39 5.A Rise of Support for Right-Wing Actors .......................................................................................................40 5.B Paul LePage and Norm-breaking in Maine ..................................................................................................47 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 49 Chapter Two - Narrative History of Lewiston and Portland ...................................................... 51 1. Maine: A State Built on Immigration ............................................................................................. 53 2. Lewiston’s History ............................................................................................................................ 54 2.A Growth of the Immigrant Community ..........................................................................................................55 2.B Early Discrimination in Lewiston .................................................................................................................58 2.C Lewiston’s Economic Downturn ..................................................................................................................60 2.D Changing Immigration in Lewiston .............................................................................................................62 2.E Somali Arrivals .............................................................................................................................................64 2.F City’s Reactions ............................................................................................................................................65 3. Portland’s History ............................................................................................................................ 67 3.A Immigration to Portland ...............................................................................................................................69 3.B Backlash to Immigration ..............................................................................................................................71 3.C Portland’s Economic Woes and Future Investment .....................................................................................73 3.D Recent Immigration to Portland and Subsequent Reactions ........................................................................75 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 77 Chapter Three - Model Cities Program ....................................................................................... 80 1.History of the Model Cities Program ............................................................................................... 85 2. Portland’s Post-War Decline ........................................................................................................... 87 2.B Portland’s Revitalization ..............................................................................................................................88 2.C Portland’s Model Cities Program .................................................................................................................91 2.D Provision of Social Services .........................................................................................................................93 2.E Institutional Structure and Support of the Program ......................................................................................94 2.F Program’s Repercussions ..............................................................................................................................96 2.G Changing Downtown ....................................................................................................................................98 iv 3. Lewiston ........................................................................................................................................... 100 3.A Lewiston’s Model Cities Program ..............................................................................................................104 3.B Institutional Structure and Support .............................................................................................................105 4. Data Related to Levels