Fifteen years ago, very few Somalis lived in the United States. But that changed with the civil war in the early 1990s when tens of thousands of refugees came to the U.S. Somalis are today the largest African refugee group in the country.

This program features two stories of Somali refugees making lives for themselves in the United States: one about American style democracy in the Somali community of Columbus, Ohio, produced by Tom Borgerding of WOSU; and a portrait of a Somali woman in in Portland Maine, narrated by her 11-year-old son, produced by Anne Glickman at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies.