Black people — many of them immigrants — make up less than 2 percent of Maine’s population but almost a quarter of its coronavirus cases

Workers at a red-brick factory called American Roots had to decide amid a pandemic whether to come back to work. Instead of the usual sweatshirts and knit caps, they would churn out masks to protect front-line workers from the novel coronavirus. Or they could take the safer route: Stay home and collect unemployment.

Almost all were immigrants from Africa or the Middle East, and workers said none of them flinched when they gathered on the factory floor that morning in March. Everyone voted to keep stitching.

“I’m not scared,” said...