The construction of the inclusive civic community and an incorporable public Somali-ness, the disciplining of Somali and non-Somali citizens to a particular mainstream praxis, and the development of programs and policies founded upon an epistemology that emphasized individual bigotry as the root of social ills – these things constitute the cultural pragmatics of newcomer incorporation in Lewiston, Maine.

Not all Lewiston residents were disciplined to the epistemology and praxis characterizing Somali immigrant incorporation. Not all Lewistonians either adopted a multicultural worldview as an article of faith or capitulated to instrumental motivations for acting disciplined. Nor did all individuals fit neatly and willingly into the categories created by the symbolic boundaries of belonging that arose in Lewiston. Not all the practices observable in the community derived from legitimated praxis and not all narrative frames proved consistent with the dominant epistemology. In addition to observing the emerging cultural and performative consensus in Lewiston, I also observed a tremendous heterogeneity of situations, speakers, and encounters. As with any study of social life, only a minute fraction of all that I observed and an even smaller share of all that was going on in Lewiston has appeared in this analysis.

However, while it has been important to identify agency and creativity in Lewiston as it appeared in the form of contestation and challenge, it is also crucial to recognize that conformity with the cultural structures of incorporation was not necessarily coerced, unwittingly adopted, or self-interestedly enacted. The people of Lewiston and participants in diversity training seminars were not generally cowed. Instead, they adopted the symbolic boundaries and related epistemology and praxis as the cultural scaffolding on which they could construct order, normalcy, greater certainty, and commonality in cooperation with their fellows.