It’s almost time for dinner on the next-to-last night of Ramadan. Hassan Ahmed sits on a well-used sofa facing a big-screen TV that dominates the front room of his small, two-bedroom apartment in the Kennedy Park neighborhood of Portland, Maine. He’s watching an Egyptian movie playing on an Arabic satellite station. After a commercial break, Hassan, a Sudanese refugee who came to the United States in 2003 with his family, relaxes his body and leans back into the couch. His dark black skin stands out in contrast to the white jelabia he wears. His short hair is starting to recede from his forehead, where expressive lines form when he’s thinking. The room is illuminated with soft yellow light from a floor lamp in the corner. Outside, the sun hangs low in the sky and the street is empty. A bitter wind blows off the Atlantic several blocks away — another cold Maine winter not far behind. More.
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