In the Mainstream

By 1998, Le Forum was a well-established centerpiece of Franco life. (For background, see last week’s post.) The Franco-American Centre in Orono had recently celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary. The paper was in the capable hands of Yvon Labbé and Lisa D. Michaud. ActFANE provided regional stories and special features regularly graced Forum pages, as for instance essays by students at Keene State College. Significantly, also included were web links, a sign that Franco-Americans were entering, like all Americans, a new mediatic era.

There were also echoes of the 1980s. Three years after the second referendum on Quebec independence, George André Lussier, now in Haverhill, was still arguing that Franco-Americans’ dignity depended on Quebec sovereignty. History and heritage—near and far—continued to make up a sizeable portion of Forum content. SUNY–Albany professor Eloïse Brière lectured on hidden identities and forced silence at the University of Maine in June. The paper advertised a colloquium on “The Acadian Culture of the Saint John Valley.” Robert Pichette wrote about the history of the Madawaska region and a National Park Service study on Maine Acadians. Further, an article on Fort Kent professor Roger Paradis, the editor of the Prudent Mercure Papers, appeared; here was a valuable source of historical information on the Valley.

From Burlington, Vermont, Kim Chase reflected on her heritage, New England lore, and the lengthy ties between New England and Quebec. In December, the Forum included Chase’s “Searching for Franco-American Vermont,” first published in Vermont Magazine in 1994. The challenge of preserving the ancestral tongue, she explained, owed not only to discrimination. Many Vermonters had become estranged from all things French-Canadian through mixed marriages and isolation from such a “critical mass of other Francophones” as found in Winooski.

Farther yet, Dean Louder shared his recent presentation titled “Québec, Canada and la Francophonie: Who Speaks for Canada’s Francophones?” Kent Beaulne provided an overview of 275 years of French life in Washington County, Missouri. There French culture had endured for centuries; only now was the last generation of French speakers slowly passing away. “There is currently a debate in North America, whether or not ‘A people who lose their language, lose their culture,’” Beaulne wrote. “With the many festivals and surviving customs in the area we hope to prove this to be wrong . .  . We are not Folklore, but alive and functioning in the modern world of the 1990s, and like our cousins in Louisiana and Québec, we are a result of nearly four centuries of the North American Experience. We may be the best kept secret in the world of La Francophonie!”

As for the French language in the Northeast, David Bourgeois noted in October that most texts in the Forum were in English, perhaps a sign that the Franco-American community need no longer be identified by its tongue. Bourgeois alluded to the struggle of obtaining French texts, which were in fact quite welcome. To a woman from Bath the reason was patent. Many people did not write in French because they lacked confidence in their abilities or believed theirs was a poor French. She suggested that people ought to feel free to contribute in Franglais or by any other means that felt right. This was still in the midst of larger efforts to grant Canadian French its lettres de noblesse. A panel on bilingualism research had taken place on the occasion of International Francophonie Day and work on bilingual education and immersion programs in the Valley was under way.

Unquestionably, one of the most unique and compelling series of the year was Grégoire Chabot’s “Somewhere Between Mania and Phobia,” with articles aiming to exorcise the ghosts of Franco-American culture. In one piece, titled, “Skeletomania,” Chabot argued that Francos were too focused on the eminent people in their past. They easily brought up baseball player Nap Lajoie, Beat writer Jack Kerouac, and crooner Rudy Vallee—and were desperate enough to include the Marquis de Lafayette, Paul Revere, and Confederate General P. G. T. Beauregard. Chabot explained,

each time I hear the litany, I find it a bit sad. First, after three centuries, our ‘hall of fame’ includes only a few dozen men. We still haven’t inducted any Franco women . . . Second, the closer we get to the present, the fewer ‘hall of fame’ candidates we find. Before 1900, we seem to do fine. After that, we have to settle for people like Rudy Vallee. Jack Kerouac doesn’t qualify quite yet. He remains practically unknown and unaccepted by most Francos who live 10 miles or more from Lowell.

Half-jokingly, Chabot noted that among the living only Robert Goulet seemed to merit a place in this pantheon. All of this, of course, was in hopes of proving the French contribution to the country. The author believed Francos should not pin their hopes on a few illustrious figures, or spend so much time “admiring Franco ghosts and phantasms.” Rather than look to the past for guidance, the present generation of Francos ought to take matters into its own hands and feel empowered.

In October, Chabot challenged the Franco habit of happily letting others do the deciding. He also highlighted the problem of the “Languestapo” in the community, that is, purists demanding everything be done in French. “I hadn’t thought about the Languestapo for years,” he wrote. “I assumed that it had disappeared, since the number of Francos who live and communicate EN FRANÇAIS continues to diminish drastically each year. But I hadn’t taken into account the depth of the bad faith that the self-appointed Franco-American elite can muster.” Evidently, Franco-Americans who had lost the language should not be stripped of their identity by others.

Of course, all was not doom and gloom and, in 1998, Forum content attested to the same level of cultural ferment and achievement seen previously. Folklorist Julien Olivier was appointed by the Brunswick Cultural Assessment Project to explore the state of French culture in the city. The fourth volume of the River Review, a bilingual publication all about the St. John Valley, was released at Fort Kent. Short pieces provided updates on the resources and activities of the Centre culturel de Mt. Carmel, the Franco-American Centre in Manchester, and the French-Canadian Heritage Society of Michigan. Cynthia Fox and Oscar Vaschereau provided news of Franco affairs in New York State. The Forum Francophone des Affaires aimed to promote the Old Canada Road to foster tourism and exchange between the business communities of Quebec and Maine.

While duo Lilianne Labbé and Don Hinkley as well as Josée Vachon toured and continued to celebrate French-Canadian music, Franco-Americans lost one of their artistic pillars. Martha Pellerin died at the age of thirty-seven. A native of Barre, Vermont, Pellerin was involved in ActFANE and established the Franglais Cultural Center in Barre. Few people worked as hard as she did to promote Franco culture in Vermont.

There was at least consolation in the vitality of Franco culture in other parts of the Northeast. The American-Canadian Genealogical Society in Manchester was approaching its twenty-fifth anniversary while Louisiana’s CODOFIL celebrated its thirtieth. In June, the French ambassador to the United States awarded Claire Quintal the Ordre national du mérite. The Conseil de la langue française and the Quebec government honored the Association Canado-Américaine with a prize for exceptional services offered to the francophone community—the first time the Conseil had selected an American organization.

Orono was not left out. For its silver anniversary, the Franco-American Centre (previously FAROG and then the Office Franco-Américain) received the medal of the Conseil de la Vie Française en Amérique . As a result, Yvon Labbé expected the sharp critique of the Franco “antimédailleurs.”

The Centre and the Forum had gone from maverick to mainstream in little more than a generation even as its mission remained the same. The paper lived up to its name and proved far more inclusive over time than other Franco-American platforms. It was and remains an important vehicle for conversations and debates about Franco life; its back issues provide invaluable perspective on the concerns animating the Franco-American community today.

My thanks to Lisa Desjardins Michaud for providing access to a number of back issues of Le Forum far exceeding the four years depicted in this series.