Rebecca Sockbeson, 26, is a Penobscot Indian who grew up on and off her tribe's Indian Island reservation in Maine. She is the coordinator for multicultural programming for the University of Southern Maine and lives in Portland.

Staff photo by John Ewing

"An elder in the tribe told me, 'It's funny how often we are aware of white people, it is such a common occurrence, but how often do they reflect about Indian people? That speaks to how invisible we are.' That was four years ago, and it really resonated with me. (White) people believe that, 'Well, we're an all-white state, why do we have to deal with race issues?' That perpetuates white privilege and power.

"What is equally damaging is the covert racism, the institutional racism. Corporations and institutions are not prioritizing the employment and retention of people of color.

"Students (at USM) who want to pick out courses relative to who they are — history, social sciences, whatever — there are not enough curriculums out there that deal with race issues. That tells students of color that the white race we teach about is superior to other cultures. In every class, there should be some part that integrates people of color into every course.

"We have near here the Scarborough High School 'Redskins.' It totally dehumanizes native people. Making a native person a mascot is completely dehumanizing and racist. The state of Maine really has to address the mascot issue.

"When I first got here, it was difficult. It was the first time I worked for a white institution. I go to Indian Island a lot. I get homesick; I don't have a native community in Portland I've been to connect with. It's important, no matter who you are, to have a family, a group of people you're comfortable with."

Lois Legendre, 50, and her husband, Walt, own a business that sells decoys and other wooden items she paints by hand. They came to Maine 19 years ago and live in Richmond.

Staff photo by John Ewing

"When we first moved here from California — I'm originally born and raised there — there were no blacks, Mexicans, you name it. There were Russians, which was new to me and extremely interesting.

"Now we have a nice diversity. We have Asians, blacks, I think we have some East Indians, so it's very diversified. I truly feel if Richmond was the dipstick of Maine, we would show Maine is friendly and loving and open to other races. There are families in my town and a couple other nearby towns who've adopted biracial children, and they are accepted fully . . .

"I think we all primarily love each other for who we are. The ice storm is typical: It didn't matter who you were or what you looked like; every one reached out a hand and helped each other . . .

"(But) I know there are people out there who cannot seem to get past the color of a person's skin. . . . I don't understand why, when I look at you, your color should block finding out who you are inside. I'll never understand where prejudice comes from. I can't comprehend how you can't know the person as a person. I have an ex-sister-in-law who is black, my daughter-in-law is Chinese, and if I hated them, wouldn't that be terrible?

"My daughter-in-law who is Chinese has only been in the family a year and we're getting to know each other better, but what a wonderful culture that is. They revere the elderly. I don't consider myself too elderly, but when we first met her, she said, 'We want you to sell your house . . . and move in with us.' How exciting and nice that was."

Armand J. Paradis, 67, is a vocational trades instructor who retired in 1996 from his job at the state prison in Thomaston. He is married, with four sons, and lives in Thomaston.

Staff photo by John Ewing

"I was born in Stockholm, Maine, and I can tell you that I have suffered racial abuse all of my life. . . . I was a 'frog,' a 'dumb Frenchman,' a 'Cannuck,' you name it. . . . There's a thousand or more different French jokes, ridiculing the French.

"My father used to be a woodsman and he used to hire French people. He never went to school, and didn't speak English very well. . . . I was just a kid, but I noticed the French people were really put down by the Yankee types.

"There was a man, Greenwood, an electrical instructor at the prison. People would say, 'Where are you from?' and he'd say, 'Biddefrog.' He did it so many times I interrupted him and asked why he did that. His response was, 'There's all these dumb French people living there.' That was 1991, 1992.

"A lot of people don't realize that some of these prejudiced people have names like White, Greenwood. . . . The name White can be traced back to the (French) name Blanc or LeBlanc, and Boisvert, for 'green wood.' A lot of these people called Baker used to be called 'Boulanger,' '' which means "baker" in French. "I think you should leave people alone and respect them for who they are."

Jenny Yasi, 40, is a singer, songwriter, author and herbalist. She lives on Peaks Island with her husband. They have two daughters.

Staff photo by John Ewing

"All of us are victims of oppression, in one way or another. It might be hard to wake up and be aware that someone who, to you, appears not to be oppressed, has hardship. We, all of us, have to open our hearts and minds and listen with an ear to how other people are oppressed and not just focus on telling others how I'm oppressed.

"I think the term 'white' often times is used with all types of assumptions. Often times when people say 'white,' they assume whites are privileged, and there are many people who are white who aren't privileged (such as) Franco-Americans — I've seem some racism there, and it has nothing to do with being white.

"I guess sometimes it seems that with our anger, we can control things — that idea of, 'Let's not tolerate intolerance' . . .

" 'If I'm angry and don't tolerate it, it will just go away.' But if you're angry and don't educate, it won't go away. If you're going to accuse somebody of being racist, and they say they're sorry and want to talk, you have an obligation to listen and engage in that conversation.

"It's like if I say, 'I feel Christmas is an OK holiday, can't we have it in schools?' and am then punished in some way for saying that, it's only going to shut my mouth and create confusion for me. . . . It's not going to create tolerance.

"White people have to feel like we can explain how we feel without being accused, because that's the only way our thinking can grow. People have to be prepared to hear and let other people say stupid things while we work out our thoughts. Making stupid suggestions and making mistakes, that's the only way we're going to learn. . . . If we're teaching tolerance we have to expect that some people will start out making mistakes."

Jeffrey Knapp, 51, is a Portland resident. He grew up in New Jersey and has lived in Maine for 12 years. He maintains computer files for a manufacturing production system.

"What baffles me about diversity is that I can't imagine what actual need diversity fills. What contemporary deficiency is corrected by the introduction of people from different ethnic backgrounds? Where else in the world is the promotion of social diversity promoted so heavily?

"I'm not suggesting that a mix is not interesting, but here, it seems to be spoken of more as fulfilling a deficiency than as the result of a process. . . . When you see boosting of diversity, it's assumed that resistance to it is a result of either hatred or, you don't want to know these people, and it's always a negative connotation.

"I think it's good to be reminded throughout your entire formal education that differences can bring something to everyone. But I don't know where to draw the line . . . for chiding people for not either appreciating or celebrating that this culture is different.

"I'm sure the Asian people don't sit around saying, 'We need some white people here in Asia.' . . . Do people in Nairobi say, 'Boy, it's boring, we need some foreigners here?' . . . Sameness shouldn't be a crime.

"I wonder how many naturalized Americans decried the lack of diversity back where they grew up. In fact, I'd be willing to wager that every one of them would much rather be back in their homeland if it were economically and/or politically feasible. I'm afraid the whole notion of artificially promoting social diversity completely mystifies me."

John Sproull, 40, is African-American. He is the president and an owner of Human Resource Information Solutions, a Brunswick firm that sells computer software. He moved to Maine from New Jersey 18 years ago. He lives in Auburn with his wife, who is white, and two sons.

A few years ago in Portland, "I'd opened a checking account and I wanted the overdraft protection of $1,000. At the time I went to open the account with that bank, firstly, I had a silver card and gold credit card with that particular bank, and between the two a $7,500 credit line with zero balance. I had over $10,000 in the bank in an IRA account, and on the application I put down two GMC loans that'd been paid off, never been late. I know what my credit was, and it was outstanding.

"When they said, 'You have insufficient credit history,' I said, 'How is it insufficient?' They basically said, 'It doesn't meet our needs.'

"I walked out of the bank, called the credit card division of that bank and asked, 'What do I need to do to increase my limit on my credit card?' which was $5,000, and they said, 'Because of your outstanding history, we'll double it for you,' just like that."

Sproull returned to the bank teller and told her the bank had increased his credit card limit. She still refused to give him overdraft protection.

"I closed all my accounts there. I left there, walked over to another bank I had absolutely no relationship with. I said, 'I'd like to open an account with a $2,000 deposit and a $1,000 credit line,' and they said, 'Great.' ''

Sproull says he was discriminated against because of his color. "I certainly don't think they treat all their customers that way. . . . In my 18 years in Maine, I'd say it's atypical, but not unheard of."

Rotha Chan, 26, was 13 when he escaped Cambodia and settled in Biddeford. He earned a degree in international relations from Boston Univeristy and now lives in Portland, where he works in the commercial loan department of Key Bank.

Staff photo by John Ewing

"Racism is very difficult to define ... During high school, I dated a (white) girlfriend whose grandmother wouldn't let me in if she was there. She lived across the street, too, and if she see me coming, she actually tell me to leave. Would we define that as racism or not — I can't tell. I talk to my girlfriend, she say, 'Don't mind her, she's an old lady.' I didn't let it bother me.

"The question of diversity goes both ways. I think that the general public is comfortable with status quo, but at the same time, you are confronted with a new group of people who are going to be here sharing your towns, your workplace and so forth. That creates discomfort, I think, and that's natural...

"If the general public doesn't take the effort to learn, to understand the minority, to understand the person from Cambodia, Iran, Afghanistan, and so on ... most of the time, racism or fear is based on lack of understanding.

"At the same time, for the immigrants, understanding (English and American culture) is not a luxury. It's a necessity, because how well you succeeds depends on how well you communicate and understand the community and know your responsibilities. So education goes both ways — for the minorities, and the general public — and I don't think that's been done enough."

Rhonda Berry, 30, is a bartender and restaurant worker who has lived in Portland ever since she was in grade school, when her father retired from the Air Force.

Staff photo by John Ewing

As an African-American, "You always get an idiot every now and then who just says something ... Usually I'll just say, 'What did you say?'

"One time I was at this restaurant bartending. We were getting ready for St. Patrick's Day, and this other bartender said, 'Rhonda, well, what do you do on St. Patrick's Day?' And I thought, 'Like we can't celebrate St. Patrick's?' ... She was just ignorant. I don't think she had much interaction with people of color. She was just saying it and thought all blacks stayed home and considered St. Patrick's Day just another day ...

"I've lived here 20 years (and seen a big increase in diversity in Portland) ... It's, like, 'Wow!' But I'm the type of person, just because there's more blacks around doesn't necessarily make me feel more comfortable. I have to meet a person; I take everybody on their own ...

"When I'd go down South to see my brother in North Carolina, down there, anyone who's black is, like, 'Hey,sister! '' I'm like, 'Hey — unless I saw you at my mother's breakfast table, you aren't my sister' ... I find that annoying. Just because someone's black, I'm not going to say, 'Okay, hey, brother!'' That's a stereotype ... I can't just look at somebody and make a decision about them. That's judging a book by its cover."

Lin Lisberger, 47, is a sculptor and Gorham resident. She and her husband, Peter, have an adoptive son and daughter, both of whom are black.

Staff photo by John Ewing

"Before I adopted black children, I can tell you my eyes were not half-open to the racism that's here. I'm very fortunate, I think, to have had this experience, because I probably would never have known this stuff. I'm the first to admit it's changed me, changed my attitudes ... If that's what it took for me — an open-minded, left-leaning, artist, raised-in-a-college-town type, raised in an anti-racist family — then what would it take the teacher who's never had a brown-skinned child in her class?

"I don't think it's the blatant racism that's so worrisome, it's the subtler stuff ... Your kid gets his picture taken in school and (the photographer) doesn't know how to light him because his skin is so dark. These are little things, but it just shows how unused to difference the state is.

"I think my son has been very, very lucky to have extraordinary teachers, all in Gorham. He's also been lucky to experience relatively little racism ... the times he's had most difficulty have to do with athletic competition. That's when he's had name-calling, making fun of his skin color.

"My feeling has always been, we need mentor programs and black teachers in our schools, in Gorham, Sabbatus and wherever, so students and adults see there are African-American professionals. It should be a concerted effort, not just by corporations, but by the state and local governments, to raise the level of the number of black professionals around the state, all kinds of professionals."

Valerie Carter is a sociologist whose focus has been race and ethnicity. She taught the subject at the University of Maine in Orono, where the majority of her students were Mainers.

Staff photo by John Ewing

Among her students, "By and large, it seemed that there was a lot of genuine interest in wanting to eliminate prejudice and not wanting to be seen as prejudiced, and trying to ask questions like, 'How can we make people less prejudiced?'....

"By the same token, I think there was a lot of anxiety about race and a lot of discomfort, and understandably so; on everybody's part, to discuss issues of race inthe classroom is a very emotionally charged thing to do... "Several years ago there was an example of someone who dared to open their mouth ... there was one young woman who was probably a freshman, and she said, 'I don't have anything against black people, but why do they have to dress like they're black and talk like they're black. Why do they have to talk or look different than us?'

"She didn't grasp the idea of there being a whole, rich black culture or subculture, whereas if she'd grown up in Boston or New York, she'd have accepted as a matter of course that there is ....

"Living in a virtually all-white locality and state is a real disadvantage in a lot of ways, because one is cut off from an important part of social reality for most Americans."

E'nkul Kanakan, 42, is a Portland resident and an immigrant originally from Congo. He is currently a community relations officer with Key Bank. He came to Portland in 1996.

Staff photo by John Ewing

Soon after his arrival, "there was an opening at King Middle School for an English teacher, so I walked there from Congress Street. I saw a (white) woman on Deering Street and she'd stop people and ask them for a dime for coffee. I'd only been here three months and didn't have much money, but I thought I could afford to give her a dollar, and as I approached, she crossed the street and said, 'I don't want you near me!'

"I just felt pity for her — if only she knew what I'd been thinking. . . . I'd seen people who had nothing to eat where I'd grown up. I wondered where she'd gotten all this pride. . . . She was trying to select, to discriminate . . .

"I just smiled, and she did not understand. She said something mean to me, and I was just smiling. I said, 'Gee this is just strange.' I just went on. I never took it personally."

Rob Lamarre, 28, is a private investigator who lives in Augusta with his wife and their two children. He grew up in Gardiner, and completed four years' service in the U.S. Air Force in 1998.

That is where I really faced my first taste of reverse discrimination. I made the (air base basketball) team, as the only white guy. Until this point, discrimination of any kind had never played a part in my life.

"At the All-Europe Basketball Tournament in Turkey . . . I was the only white person in the tournament, at all. All coaches, players and refs were black. . . . One of the captains on my team . . . advised me to watch out for any stray elbows or rough picks (from other teams)."

The next day "the whole tournament, for me, was like my teammates said it would be: filled with verbal assaults and avoiding extracurricular contact on the court. . . .

"I had averaged about 20 points, eight assists and three or four steals per game. . . . I thought, as did my team, I had a shot at making the All-Tourney Team. It didn't happen. . . . Some of my teammates, they never came out and said, 'You didn't get it because you're white.' But that's what the hint was — they said, 'It's a shame you're not a brother.' . . . I was very disappointed.

"But I looked at it another way. I tried to imagine a black guy being put in that same position at, say, a softball tournament here in Maine. I knew I belonged with some of the best guys in the tournament, but it probably didn't look right to some of the all-black voters.

"In my four years of playing Air Force hoop, I had many good and bad stories about being one of, if not the only, white person affiliated with the team."

Sarah LeClair, 46, is an attorney in Presque Isle, and currently represents clients in two racial discrimination lawsuits on behalf of the Maine Civil Liberties Union.

I can't make any generalizations about racial discrimination in Aroostook. . . . In average, daily life in practicing law, I have people make general comments about a (racial) minority, or use a phrase that's offensive because it's minority-based, and I try to point that out. Other than our Native American population, we don't have a large minority population in Aroostook County and they haven't learned that — it's like we're 20 years behind the times, and it's like, 'Would you think about what you've said!'

"There are comments and statements that can be made in the workplace in Maine that people don't get called on because we don't have a large minority population, and when you do have a minority individual and inject them into that situation . . . people find for the first time it's not acceptable to use that language."

Ziba Nekooie, 40, lives in Portland's North Deering neighborhood with her daughter, Kimiya. Nekooie came to Maine from Iran in 1978 and is a computer engineer at Unum.

I know after living here for 20 years that people in Maine are very nice, for the most part. . . . It's been good, just incidents here or there. Nothing I'd categorize as dangerous, but — annoying.

"I went to a restaurant . . . with a friend who is not fluent with the language. I said very gently, in Persian, 'Why don't you put your coat on the chair' and in 30 seconds, this girl who was drinking beer at the bar, she turns around with a very arrogant attitude and says, 'This is America, start speaking English now.' I had this shock on my face. I said to myself, I've been here 21 years and thought I'd seen everything, except this.

"For 20 minutes, she badgered me. . . . I finally got a little bit mean. . . . As soon as I stood up to her, she backed right down. . . . She finally apologized . . . and finally left. . . . Everybody was apologizing.

"People have asked me, 'Are you a terrorist?' I've said, 'No, but my cousins are.' Once they hear you're from Iran, they want to start with the politics and I say, 'Please, I work all week, I just want to relax a couple hours. I don't represent a whole country.'

"Persia has 2,500 years of history and culture and lots of nice people, but just like here, you have thieves and bad people also.

"If one of my relatives asked me to describe America and I taped five minutes of the local and national news every night . . . we'd be talking about Jeffrey Dahmer, the homeless, drugs, high school shootings. Would I be telling the truth? Yes, but not all of it, and that's what's going on with Iran. People have seen the revolution, people fighting in the streets yelling 'Death to America,' and women in chadors. I can assure you, none of my relatives were in the street."

Jerry Burton is an Augusta resident and owner of S/L Construction, which specializes in working with live power lines. He does $4 million in business annually and has 40 employees.

Staff photo by John Ewing

I know after living here for 20 years that people in Maine are very nice, for the most part. . . . It's been good, just incidents here or there. Nothing I'd categorize as dangerous, but — annoying.

At his business, "It's just myself, being black; . . . the rest are white workers. I look at it this way: I'm either the most blind person, or things have just worked so well in my business that I don't have problems. I'm just Jerry.

"I deal with half the contractors in the state of Maine. They're all white. . . . You just tell it like it is and keep your word. I feel I get a fair shake. . . . I'm probably the only black utility contractor in the state of Maine. We're doing pretty well."

Burton occasionally hears whites use terms that some would call racist. For example, a common name for a device used in lumberyards incorporates a derogatory term.

"Some people really jump on something like that, (but) it's no more than people living in the state of Maine. It's a word that's been used for years and years in Maine; it's not being used as a slur."

Robert Talbot, 58, is a Bangor native who retired in his hometown in 1997 after a career with the Office of Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Labor in Boston.

Talbot says that though Maine has more people of color than ever, the state remains overwhelmingly white and needs to raise awareness about diversity.

Talbot, who is African-American, attended a human-rights march in Bangor last year. "I was amazed. There were people of color there, and it was like, 'Oh, I didn't know you were here! What are you doing, where are you from?' I think there are a lot of people out there. . . .

"Unfortunately, I don't think the awareness is as high as it is in Portland. . . . Bangor is lagging behind Portland (in diversity awareness). This is only the third annual Martin Luther King Day event that's been held here. . . .

"There are more opportunities for people of color, but one of the downsides has been that discrimination is in a more subtle form now. You're not going to run into signs saying, 'Blacks need not apply,' but there are more subtle ways of discrimination.

"One of the downsides of not having a sizable population of people of color is a great many people don't know how to act or react when they come in contact with a person of color. So I think the emphasis has to be on the schools primarily, and through that, into the community, to have everyone recognize, 'I've always had this hang-up with the race thing, (but) we're all part of the human race.' "

Whitney Gray, 34, was born and raised in Maine. She is a freelance journalist and white; Shawn Kadie, her husband and a computer programmer, is African-American. She has three white children from a previous marriage, and a son with her husband. The family lives in Newry.

"We lived in Chicago for three years after being married and it was terrible. We lived in an upscale black community, but we weren't received well there. If we went a town away to go to dinner in a suburb that was white, I've had men come up to me when my husband was in the restroom and say, 'What, you couldn't find a white guy to marry?' We almost got run off the road one evening by an SUV; they started yelling racial slurs and things like that. We'd actually weigh whether or not we wanted to go out to dinner."

The family has had no problems in Maine. "It's not in our face. We don't think about it anymore. I asked the children, 'What do the children at school say, because they know your father is black?' and they said nobody said anything, though some asked questions.

"Some people in Maine might think there's a huge race issue, huge race problems in Maine, and I don't mean to minimize that — wherever there's angst or anger, it's real for everyone — but really and truly, this is probably as close to utopia for us as we can get.

"I feel very strongly it's up to those of us who've gained experienced not to get angry with those unexperienced about what it's like to be part of a world with more color in it ... I think we've got to establish a dialogue, let go of our hate and anger over this."

Margaret Carignan, 36, is a marketing coordinator who is married and lives in Portland. She grew up in Hampden.

Growing up there in the '70s, it was a farming community, a small community. . . . It's on the river, the Penobscot River, and it was white, white bread. I think I saw a black person for the first time coming in to Portland for a shopping trip for school. I was probably 8 or 9 years old. I was more amazed than anything — 'Wow! That person has a different skin color.' I wasn't scared.

"My mother was a person who always said everyone is created equal. I was raised in that kind of household. . . . I remember my father, when Martin Luther King Jr. was shot, him saying, 'They don't know what they've done.' And I saw him cry for the first time.

"I abhor any type of discrimination. . . . I feel the people of Maine, in general, are not bigots. They are just not educated, or, more importantly, exposed to people of color or ethnic backgrounds. I travel for work, and am constantly reminded of how white a state Maine is when I am away."

Debra Hatch, 20, is a Harpswell native and junior at the University of Maine in Orono, where she studies journalism. Hatch says she's frustrated about some people's racial attitudes.

"A lot of it is underscored in the kinds of things people say — 'the (racial slurs) — that I hear out and about, talking with other people. Some are students, others are the older generation, in their 40s, 50s and older ... Many people I have talked to about this feel that other races are out there, trying to get something for nothing.

"I may not have lived as long as some of these people, but I realize that people of color are just trying to get by like anyone else.

"Being a Christian also helps a lot: You're taught that God loves everybody and it doesn't matter what color you are or gender — in the end, we're all accepted as the same; Jesus died for all of us. So my own thinking has to be, why should I hold prejudice against people if I don't have the experience to go with it."

As for people of color in Maine, "the population is growing, incrementally. They're going to start coming into different towns and churches and schools, and if people are not taught about different countries and the basics like, 'This is European culture, this is Asian, these are some of the beliefs,' when these people come, there'll be a lot of ignorance (among whites) and ignorance may bring fear, and fear can turn into hatred, in the form of violence."

Nils Groneng, 37, and his wife, Melanie, have two adoptive multi-racial children and live in Brunswick. A Maine native and marine engineer, Groneng and his family returned to Maine last year after living in Louisiana.

"As far as our kids are concerned, the important thing is to love and be loved in return. I look at them and think, 'That's my son, that's my daughter,' not, 'That's my bi-racial daughter, my bi-racial son.'

"We felt more out of place sometimes in Louisiana than we do here. For instance, if we went into a store in Louisiana, we had more people come up to us over time and make comments, like, 'Are you running a day care?'

"I obviously knew what Maine was all about, having grown up here. I think we've had much less of those kinds of incidents here. We've actually felt more acceptance. We've had people come up and say, 'Oh, look at your darling children.'

"One of the main reasons we chose to live in Brunswick (is) you've got a major Navy base here, and people of all races, colors, religions here because of the base, and a major college here, Bowdoin, which is diverse ... We knew (our children) would be exposed to a diverse population.

"We've done some simple things. When we were still living down South, we bought toys: white and black dolls, a black set and white set of doll houses, and mixed them together. Just things like that. We thought about things that other people wouldn't ...

"It's about making them feel secure and good about themselves, because they will face some encounters. Not everybody will be accepting out there ...."

Trudy Foster, 33, has Maine roots extending to the 1700s. She lives in Gray with her husband, who is a builder, and their two daughters. She works part-time as an accountant's receptionist.

"When I went to high school — I graduated in 1984 from Greeley High School in Cumberland — there were no black people ... now I live in the town of Gray, there's all kinds of black people.

"I go to the New Gloucester Congregational Church, and we're very diverse. We have two families who've adopted multi-racial children. We have a black member. I think it's good, it makes me feel good inside. We make everyone feel welcome, regardless of their skin ... If I see someone unique or different, I try to meet them .... I think God intended me to be with everyone.

"I lived in Bangor from 1985 to 1987 and worked in a bank. We only had two full-blooded Indians that worked in the bank and they were discriminated against ... there were other people, my bosses, who said these ones, these Indian women, had to be top-notch to get in, because they were Indian. And it was well recognized around Bangor, if you went into a bar, people would say, 'Don't go into that one, because Indians hang out there.'

"I think there's a lot of reverse discrimination. I can't go to a black college because I'm not black, but they're black and can go to any college. I agree that as slaves they were mistreated two or three generations ago, but those today — in a sense, they've got more programs than we ever thought of having, so I hate it when they cry wolf and complain, 'Pity me because I'm black' ... I guess the reverse discrimination bothers me."

Sara Bernard, 20, is a former Portland-area resident now living in Weld. She studies English and history via the distance-learning program of the University of Maine at Augusta.

"I'm up north, close to Farmington, in Weld. It's very small and it's a mainly white, middle-class type of neighborhood. And I've never liked it mainly because of that. . . . I have noticed that in smaller towns, like the further north you go, there's more prejudice. . . . It may not manifest itself to the point of derogatory remarks or action toward people, but people are much more focused on color — they don't look at the personality of a person.

"I like standing on Congress Street (in Portland) and seeing all the different kinds of people walking by: people in African garb, Rastafarians, people speaking different languages. It's really great.

"Maine, to me, is, like, a special place. . . . For a while, I had sort of gotten comfortable, hadn't realized that certain things were happening, like the synagogue in Presque Isle being defaced. I didn't think in a place like this that things like that could happen. I was shocked that this kind of stuff happened. And people have to know about it, even if it shocks them. It might get them up and doing something about it. . . .

"With everyone finding out what a great state (Maine is) . . . as more people come in, there will be more of a different culture. There will be more different people. You can't keep saying it never will happen. Being comfortable sometimes means resisting change, and that might not be good — that might cause conflict — because you're not open to new people and change."

Kathleen Soreide, 52, and her husband, Jim, are the adoptive parents of Lianna, a 7-year-old African-American daughter. The couple also has four other children. Soreide and her family live in Brunswick.

"If you have a child of color, you have a vital interest in race relations. It ceases to be theory, because you have a daily, intimate connection with someone of a different background.

"There have been times and places where I've felt eyes upon us, and you could just hear the 'tsk, tsk,' mostly from older folks, but I've been daily, favorably surprised by people's positive reaction to our family. At this point, people are uniformly pleasant to her in the store. Clerks will tell her, 'I love your hair, you're so gorgeous,' so she just generally elicits positive responses.

"There's an incredible difficulty for a white person to cross the line, the gulf between us and people of color, if your path hasn't taken you where you have contact with people of color. My personal feeling is, until we can sit at the kitchen table as friends, there's always going to be a gulf. Even with the best intentions in the world, it's hard to reach across it.

"If your path doesn't take you to meet people of color, how do you meet them? I have gone up to strangers in the supermarket and said, 'I love your hair, how have you done it? I'd love to do that for my daughter who is African-American.'

"How would a Mainer even begin to think about the issue? Because it doesn't just come up. The answer is the churches. Another is the colleges and universities ... the idea of racial harmony is not foreign to Christianity, though it may not be the major thing on the churches' agenda."

Roger Cantello, 36, is a Briton who lives in Falmouth. He has coached the Portland High School soccer team for three years.

"This year was fairly typical. I had 20 kids, and had seven or eight different languages, with kids from America, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Sudan and El Salvador.

"I can honestly say I've never had a racial issue or any kind of problem amongst my own team. It's great fun and we're united by one thing, and that's soccer. . . . I pay tribute to the American kids on the team, too. They're helpful and open-minded and want to see a kid on the team play — they don't care if the kid has just arrived or been here for a while.

"(But) I've gotten comments . . . insidious stuff like, 'You got any Americans on the team this year?' or accusing some of my kids of being over-age . . . Some of the coaches (from other teams) think I have a constant stream of kids coming to the team, and they'll say, 'How many did you get off the boat this month?' and that's a pretty offensive thing to say, and I take issue with it.