Thank You, Georgette

REMARKS to Rotary International and Canadian Visitors 10/29/93

There is a terrific musical trio here in Maine. They sing folk songs, talk of life in Maine, their name is SCHOONER FARE. Their latest CD has a song entitled QUEBECOIS…and it touches on names like Levesque, Corriveau… “They sweat all day from dawn till dusk, six days a week in the mills and shoe factories, it is work, it is family, it is church and God…a new life here and be who we are. But we’ll go back home someday.”

Just a song, but one that relates in a few words the pain and the struggles which these immigrants had to endure. A few did go back home but most stayed, made their mark, and now their children and grandchildren carry on their ideals, but in a more affluent lifestyle thanks to the hard work of their forebears.

The French presence has been felt in Maine ever since the 17^th century after the French explorer Samuel de Champlain had made his first foray into North America in 1603 which was five years before he founded Québec City. He named this magnificent corner of America for a province in France, Le Maine, but it was not until the beginning of the 19^th century that the first great migrations from French Canada started.

The Quebecers settled mostly in New England for different reasons than the Acadians who planted their roots in northern Maine in a beautiful land called the St. John Valley which borders New Brunswick. It was the period known as “Le Grand Dérangement.”  It was the expulsion in 1755 of these people of Nova Scotia by the British, an expulsion which would carry them as far as Louisiana…it was a very sad part of Canadian history.

Between the years 1871 and 1930 some 1.6 million Canadians came from Québec. And they chose to come for economic reasons though having been preceded in the late 1830s by others who were fugitives and exiles seeking safety from British prosecution for their part in the 1837 uprising in Québec. These economic reasons were due to the agricultural industry which had fallen into decline from the exhaustion of unfertilized fields, and the over-division of farms to provide lands for their too numerous sons. Thousands sought employment in the New England textile mills and shoe factories which hired whole families who worked from dawn till dusk and with wages of $6.00 for a week. These courageous and hopeful immigrants coming to a strange land, with a different language, did not undertake this dislocation because of political or religious reasons. It was the opposite of the reasons for the migrations from Europe: it was pure and simple necessity. Maine saw many arrive, and here in Lewiston they stepped down from the Canadian railroad trains at the Lincoln Street station, wide-eyed at the sight of giant mills…seeing themselves acquiring a richer and easier life than the one they were leaving. It was going to be only for a short time: go back home with enough money to buy land.  They stayed…but at what price!  These industrious and deeply religious people fed the labor-hungry factories, and they sacrificed with the near-loss of language and culture. It was quite a contrast with the serene pastoral life they had left behind. The mill owners liked these hardworking “canucks”…they also found them to be passive and docile.

When they came, they brought with them their clergy, founded their own churches with the apparatus for convents, schools, fraternal societies and importantly, a French press. Clergy were the elite, as were their doctors and religious teachers who followed. They lived in closely-knit homes and neighborhoods called Little Canada…they were a solid, active and respectful community. During World War I they enlisted, and they ran for political office. Their families grew: 10, 14, 19 children was not an unusual number but nevertheless they managed to save their money, later investing in tangible assets, something they could see and feel: land, real estate income, property. Their parish schools flourished, and for them, retention of the language was a primary need made more so by the drumming into them of the saying by the clergy: “Qui perd sa langue perd sa foi.”  (He who loses his language loses his Faith.)  They would succeed in preserving both.

But that was a long time ago. What of today?  What did they leave us that might have longtime impact on Lewiston, on Maine? In New England the contributions made by these French Canadians, now called Franco-Americans, were indeed many, and one of the most important was the legacy of a language. It is interesting to note that, of all the many ethnic groups to have settled here, French is the language that has continued to make its presence felt to a far larger degree than others. In an English-speaking milieu it was very easy to assimilate, and today it is even more difficult to retain one’s language and ethnic culture. We live under the constant influence of English communications media. It was the language of work. Although the language of diplomacy remains French, finance and commerce are carried on in English. To some, the passage of years has caused them to regard their Gallic tongue as less of an insignia of honor, and to their children it often became an identification of inferiority because in order to survive they felt that they must conform, and without an accent betraying their roots.

There were no bankers as such among their group, yet banks hired them as tellers...after all, they had to attract the deposits of these thrifty workers who were rapidly accumulating savings. In turn, they became merchants, started banks, and even entered the world of politics. They became a political force, ran successfully for office…even their women…but that took longer. And some of the social world was closed to them and they could not easily access it; they could not at that time become members of the Rotary, for example.

A word that often creeps into books relating to French-Canadian immigrants is survivance. In my view, survival of any culture can be only maintained with its language, and it was the tenacity of our ancestors that kept it alive and helped maintain this survivance.