Ziad H. Hamzeh's THE LETTER is an especially dramatic… work of polemical reportage on racism in America. The entry of a few hundred Somali refugees in the nearly all-Anglo Maine burg of Lewiston becomes the flashpoint for locals having to deal with diverse, non-Euro cultures for the first time, sparking an inevitable round of bigotry and pleas for tolerance. A sure conversation-starter at festivals…

A 10-minute montage of talking heads imparts the feeling of a town hit by a social and political tornado, beginning with the aftermath of the disastrous U.N. and U.S. involvement in 1993 to calm civil war in Somalia. The human result was a U.S. sponsored move of Somali refugees, first to crime-ridden 'hoods in Atlanta, and then (on the initiative of Somali families) to safer communities such as Lewiston.

Lewiston is a study of the American Dream in collapse, as residents describe how this once-thriving Franco-American textile center declined with the closure of Bates Mill, once Maine's biggest employer. Despite early acceptance of the suddenly arriving Somalis, much of it facilitated by local churches, a terrible combination of old-timer resentment along with the distinctively foreign look of the African residents creates an ideal brew for racism.

A crucial turn for the town, in retrospect, was voters' failure to re-elect progressive mayor Kaleigh A. Tara (who supports the refugees staying and thriving in Lewiston). Instead, they pick her conservative opponent, Larry Raymond, whose open letter – referred to in the pic's title – states in effect, that additional Somalis weren't welcome. Hamzeh splices together participants' comments as a substitute for conventional narration – an interesting approach to non-fiction narrative. …It serves as the dramatic build to neo-Nazi outsiders barnstorming the town to exploit local hatred – and a group of citizens organizing a far larger counter-rally. Some chilling characters are on display, including David Stearns (credited as a "brother" of the World Church of the Creator) who extols complete separation of the races, and white separatist John Fox, who looks like he expected a bigger turnout of bigots in Lewiston than he got.