LEWISTON — Museum L-A and collaborators Katherine Besteman of Colby College and Anne Kemper of Lewiston Adult Education were nationally recognized at the annual meeting of the American Association for State and Local History in Richmond, Va.

The organization’s Leadership in History awards committee chose to honor Museum L-A’s “Rivers of Immigration: Peoples of the Androscoggin” exhibit which ran in 2009-10 and explored the history of immigration in Lewiston-Auburn from the mid-1800s to today with personal stories, photographs and interactive components.

The AASLH Leadership in History Awards is the nation’s most prestigious competition for recognition of achievement in state and local history. In commenting on the selection, judges noted: “This exhibit and related programming is a fine example of a museum program that offers the general public a serious, accurate and scholarly account of local history in a way that is sensitive to community values. The exhibit and its associated lecture series connected the community with its story of immigration by building bridges between past and present. Based out of [Besteman’s] exhibit on Somali-Bantu immigration, a controversial topic in the community at the time, Museum L-A became a party in community reconciliation by expanding the exhibit to tie the topic of modern immigration.”

Kemper and her students in the Lewiston Adult Education’s English Language Learner program contributed first-person histories and portraits. “Rivers of Immigration” is currently being updated and re-installed in the museum.