Dear Yankee | April 2017

City of Hope

Let me congratulate Yankee on the wonderful article on immigrants in Lewiston, Maine [“City of Hope,” March/April]. I have shared the content with everyone I know as an example of excellent journalism and as a model of how things should work in this country. Sending the best from an avid reader in Arizona—

Elizabeth H. McFall via email

As a lifetime New Englander and subscriber of Yankee, I regret that I will be canceling my subscription to your magazine. I am so tired of leftist liberal views being shoved down my throat from every news media, and now when I want to sit down with a nice cup of coffee and look at pictures of lighthouses and lobster bakes, I instead have some article [“City of Hope,” March/April] selling me on the fact that the takeover of a nice Maine town by a bunch of Somalian refugees is somehow good for us, and a quote of how we should be “lucky to have them” is highlighted and put in our face…. I know your type will automatically dismiss me as ignorant, racist, Islamophobic, and whatever else your liberal handbook tells you to think, and I’m fine with that.

David Redding via email

It eludes me as to the logic, intelligence, empathy, and common sense of relocating people from Somalia to the state of Maine [“City of Hope,” March/April]. The diametric contrast in every category of Somalia relative to Maine is without question.

Would these people have been more compatibly relocated to a country similar to Somalia in that part of the world instead of Maine? They have nothing in common with Maine or western civilization, absolutely nothing.

They will ultimately not assimilate or integrate, and will remain a subset, always separate from traditional Lewiston and greater Maine society. There is no equity in that situation, for either the native citizens of Lewiston or the Somali people. My view is that it was a colossal cultural mistake.

Victor J. Cameron Portsmouth, Rhode Island

While recovering from knee replacement surgery, I have the time to read some 1950s editions of Yankee (which had been donated to our local museum but for which they had no use) as well as my January/February 2017 edition.

What fun! While the earlier editions are more folksy and the ads more numerous and the current edition is shinier and more “polished,” both are filled with articles and tidbits that are informative and educational.

Both, of course, are publications reflecting the times in which they were published. But I expect the audience for both time frames is very similar. I myself have been a subscriber to Yankee since the mid-1960s, and my mother had it before me.

So thank you for a great walk down memory lane and for helping me to heal more quickly. Although I’ve lived in Michigan for more than 45 years, I still consider myself a Yankee at heart.

Mary Krein Howarth Rochester Hills, Michigan 

Chris Linley Best candy ever! I would bite off little pieces and just let them melt away in my mouth. That’s a maple leaf–shaped piece of heaven right there!

Lisa Rollins I love scallops. Last month I made the oven-“fried” scallop recipe from the magazine. It came out perfectly and was a wonderful treat. Close enough to real deep-fried, which I can no longer eat.

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