How Do Social Service Providers View Recent Immigrants? Perspectives from Portland, Maine, and Olympia, Washington

Abstract

This article explores how social service providers in two small, geographically distinct cities—Portland, Maine, and Olympia, Washington—understand the importance of welcoming and incorporating new immigrants in their cities. We focus on how providers characterize their responsibilities, how they understand the importance of responding to new immigrants, and what they describe as the challenges and opportunities presented by recent immigration to their cities. Despite differences in Portland and Olympia, we find that providers in both cities combine a sense of moral responsibility to help immigrants, with an emphasis on the economic and cultural resources immigrants bring to cities. These insights expand recent immigration scholarship from a focus on immigrants alone to include the perspectives and logics of social service workers who are often their first points of contact in new places.