![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
- Le Devoir features an article pointing its readers to the many and verifiable attractions of the Ontario city of Hamilton.
- The closure of the GM plant in Oshawa hits employment across a frighteningly large chunk of the Canadian automotive sector. Global News reports.
- In Metro Vancouver, legislation aiming at preventing "monster home" construction on farmland is encountering opposition among farmers. Global News reports.
- Alex Carp at the NYR Daily takes a look at the new role of Ariel Palitz, effective mayor of nightlife in New York City.
- Le Devoir notes the impending closure of Saint Anne's Church, Église Sainte-Anne, in the New England town of Fall River, no longer a centerpiece of Franco-American community life.
[LINK] "Floribec: Quebec in the Tropics"
May. 7th, 2012 09:43 pmI made a brief post in 2008 referring to the phenomenon of modern immigration by Canadian Francophones to Florida, a migration driven not by economic incentives but rather by the attractiveness of Florida's tropical climate. (The similar contemporary migration to Maine, also driven by tourism, is less noteworthy inasmuch as Maine has been a destination for Francophone immigration since the late 19th century.) An extensive post at New Geography by UQAM's Rémy Tremblay describes the community's development and questionable future in detail.
It is hard to pinpoint the origin of the word "Floribec" but it appears to have been adopted in the 1970s by Quebec residents wintering in Florida and made official in a study by Louis Dupont in the 1980s. According to him, French Canadians began immigrating to Florida in the 1930s. This immigration came in the wake of spending by the United States government, which, in an effort to resolve the 1929 economic crisis, undertook to build a network of canals through the marshland in southeast Florida and, notably, to open the Intercoastal Waterway, a navigable canal hundreds of kilometres long. At the same time, the government was also attempting to develop the infrastructure for tourism. Thousands of Americans travelled to the "Sunshine State" to work on this vast construction site. Among them were Franco-Americans from New England, some accompanied by their French-Canadian cousins. Once the construction work was completed, rather than going home, many of the French-Canadian workers took up permanent residence in the Miami region, particularly in Surfside, on the Atlantic coast, and in North Miami. After the Second World War, there were 67,000 French-Canadian and Franco-American families living in the State of Florida. These new permanent residents of Surfside and North Miami and of Sunny Isles generally found work in the tourist industry because Florida, especially Miami, was the holiday destination of a growing number of wealthy French-Canadians. This initial wave of Quebecois mass migration to Florida began at the end of the war and continued until 1960.
The period from 1960 to 1970 saw a second wave of French-Canadian, mainly Quebecois, migration to the Miami region, with the appearance of a new type of immigrant: the investor. Two of the factors contributing to increased immigration were the liberating effect of the Quiet Revolution and the growth of wealth in Quebec. The fact that these two phenomena occurred simultaneously appears to have encouraged the people of Quebec to look beyond their borders. Expo 67 and a number of other Quebec cultural events made the rest of the world more aware of the province and, as well, the people of Quebec used this period of cultural vitality to increase their travel to foreign destinations.
At the same time, the tourist industry was experiencing rapid development in Florida with the arrival of the major airlines, the construction of the United States freeway system, and the north-south shift of economic and political power, which sparked phenomenal growth in the cities of the Sun Belt, including Miami. Miami Beach and its suburbs of Surfside and Sunny Isles became the favourite seaside destinations of the Quebecois. Recognizing the opportunity the situation presented, the Floribecois set up businesses in the area to cater mainly to Quebecois tourists, building French-language motels, restaurants, bars, convenience stores, and various other services to meet their needs.
From the 1970s onward, most businesses were established in Surfside and Sunny Isles, especially along Collins Avenue, whose location less than a kilometre from the beach offered increased customer traffic. The favourite tourist destination of the Quebecois was now affordable and there was no longer any language barrier. During this period, the Thunderbird, Suez, Waikiki and Colonial hotels were familiar to any Quebecois who travelled regularly to Florida, and even to those who were merely thinking of going there. Cultural life was vibrant because of the continued presence of such artists as Gilles Latulippe and other popular Quebec comedians and singers, who performed to sold-out audiences in the most popular hotels. The localization of these cultural activities in the gathering places of Quebecois tourists would serve to establish the physical boundaries of Floribec as a transnational tourist community.
[. . .]
Floribec constitutes an interesting chapter in the history of modern Quebec and it represents an intriguing and unique pocket of French-speaking America. This transnational community came into being as a result of people patronizing numerous businesses and other community-building venues situated in a relatively small geographical area on the Atlantic coast. These sites played an essential role as centres of community life for French-speakers who were living in or visiting the greater Miami area. Today, certain community practices formerly associated with Floribec can still be found; however, they are dispersed over a much wider area and signs of any Quebecois presence in the Florida landscape are increasingly difficult to discern.
Tags:
A recent Canadian press article brought out the continued relevance of the Franco-American diaspora a century ago in the modern-day relationship between Canadian Québec and American Vermont.
A $30C two and a half hour bus drive from Montréal, the idea of the Vermont state capital trying to attract tourists from the mostly Francophone second city of a Canada that weathered the global economic crisis of the past years better than the United States makes economic and geographic logic both. The article also indicates, however, cultural, even genealogical logics behind this outreach.
Taking a look at the United States' census data, French is the first language of a substantial number of people in northern New England, 2-3% in Vermont and New Hampshire and more than 5% in Maine. Maine, indeed, is home to a a higher proportion of Francophones than in Louisiana. These proportions make northern New England as English/French bilingual as many regions of Canada, as much as most of Ontario and Atlantic Canada outside of the bilingual belt.
Does it follow from the fact of this bilingualism that northern New England is as closely bound to Québec as those two Canadian regions? No. It does demonstrate that in the past the boundaries between the Canadian and American regions were fairly low and permeable. David Lepitre's essay "Genealogy on the Quebec/Vermont border" describes how easy it was in the 19th century to cross from the initially British-settled but now Francophone-majority Eastern Townships in southeastern Québec to Francophone-immigrant-receiving northern New England. A certain sentimental community does still exist, as illustrated inadvertantly by this 2008 post at the Zero Anthropology blog, and even after the end of the mass migrations, seasonal migration occurs--Maine, for one, is a massive destination for Québec tourists. Certain jurisdictions on different sides of the border have cooperated closely, the paradigm being that between the Québec town of Stanstead and the Vermont community of Derby Line, although now, as I noted here and here, the trend has been for divergence owing to post-9/11 border controls.
Divergence, though, is not inevitable. In a time where there is serious discussion of connecting upstate New York to Ontario by high-speed rail to form a new transnational community for everyone's benefit, the idea of trying to do the same in relation to Québec and northern New England makes at least as much sense. Using ancestral ethnic links to justify the strengthening of an already-existing cross-border community can lend a certain momentum to that sort of somewhat border-subversive project.
Vermont, long known for its small-town charm and friendly people, is sending a message to its neighbours to the north: Canadians are bienvenue.
Burlington city council has unanimously passed a non-binding resolution encouraging local businesses to put up more French signs and to get their employees to learn the language.
“We really want people to know we're putting out the welcome mat,” Norman Blais, the councillor who sponsored the motion, told The Canadian Press.
A strong Canadian dollar has meant more tourists than ever are flocking south of the border.
According to the Vermont tourism office, Canadians already make up nearly 20 per cent of visitors to the state, and although hard numbers aren't available for this year, Deputy Commissioner Steve Cook said Canadian travel agencies are ordering twice as many Vermont travel guides this year.
It's a trend Burlington wants to encourage.
Mr. Blais says the fact the notoriously divisive city council voted unanimously, when “normally they can't decide on which side the sun will rise,” is a testament to local enthusiasm for the plan.
For Ron Redmond, executive director of Burlington's Church Street marketplace, the move just makes sense. He says the increase in the number of Canadian tourists this year is a great opportunity to deepen already close ties between Vermont and Quebec.
“We want to build strong relationships that don't depend on currency fluctuations,” he said.
“Everyone here has relatives across the border. Connections are so deep.”
A $30C two and a half hour bus drive from Montréal, the idea of the Vermont state capital trying to attract tourists from the mostly Francophone second city of a Canada that weathered the global economic crisis of the past years better than the United States makes economic and geographic logic both. The article also indicates, however, cultural, even genealogical logics behind this outreach.
“A generation ago, one-third of Vermonters had French-Canadian surnames,” Mr. Blais explained.
He himself is a good example. Both his parents come from Quebec, and he grew up speaking French around the house.
“Then I got grew up, got assimilated, and I rejected French as sort of un-American,” he said. “As I got older, I realized what a loss that was.
“A lot of Vermonters want to rediscover that heritage.”
Taking a look at the United States' census data, French is the first language of a substantial number of people in northern New England, 2-3% in Vermont and New Hampshire and more than 5% in Maine. Maine, indeed, is home to a a higher proportion of Francophones than in Louisiana. These proportions make northern New England as English/French bilingual as many regions of Canada, as much as most of Ontario and Atlantic Canada outside of the bilingual belt.
Does it follow from the fact of this bilingualism that northern New England is as closely bound to Québec as those two Canadian regions? No. It does demonstrate that in the past the boundaries between the Canadian and American regions were fairly low and permeable. David Lepitre's essay "Genealogy on the Quebec/Vermont border" describes how easy it was in the 19th century to cross from the initially British-settled but now Francophone-majority Eastern Townships in southeastern Québec to Francophone-immigrant-receiving northern New England. A certain sentimental community does still exist, as illustrated inadvertantly by this 2008 post at the Zero Anthropology blog, and even after the end of the mass migrations, seasonal migration occurs--Maine, for one, is a massive destination for Québec tourists. Certain jurisdictions on different sides of the border have cooperated closely, the paradigm being that between the Québec town of Stanstead and the Vermont community of Derby Line, although now, as I noted here and here, the trend has been for divergence owing to post-9/11 border controls.
Divergence, though, is not inevitable. In a time where there is serious discussion of connecting upstate New York to Ontario by high-speed rail to form a new transnational community for everyone's benefit, the idea of trying to do the same in relation to Québec and northern New England makes at least as much sense. Using ancestral ethnic links to justify the strengthening of an already-existing cross-border community can lend a certain momentum to that sort of somewhat border-subversive project.
[LINK] "Nous parlons francais"
Mar. 20th, 2009 02:47 pmJoseph Nadeau's article in the Pawtucket Times, "Nous parlons francais", takes a look at the efforts of Franco-Americans, descendants of French Canadian migrants in the late 19th and early 20th century, to maintain something of their language and heritage in the old industrial city of Woonsocket.
It’s possible to listen to French being spoken on local radio programs, and you can still find older city residents at the Woonsocket Senior Center who chat in French as easily as they do in English.
The problem for area Francophiles, however, is simply that there isn’t a lot of coordination between the various French-oriented events held in the area or the French Canadian resources located here, such as the American-French Genealogical Society library at 78 Earle St.
Dominique Gregoire, president of Alliance Francais de Providence, hopes to change all that with a new week-long celebration of the area’s French and French-Canadian ties, to be held in conjunction with International Francophone Day on March 20.
Gregoire, a native of Brittany, France, and resident of Rhode Island for the past 22 years, said the events to be held in Rhode Island starting March 19 are intended to bond the various groups already here into a more active network promoting Gallic culture.
During an announcement of the new collaboration at the Musee du Travail et de la Culture de Woonsocket (the Museum of Work and Culture), Gregoire said he sees the upcoming Semaine de la Francophonie 2009 (French Speakers Week) as an idea that can only grow.
“The Italians in Rhode Island have their day, and the Irish have their day, and now the French are going to have their week,” he said.
The concept of a week celebrating the area’s ties to the Province de Quebec, Canada, France, and to many of the 40 other French-speaking countries around the world, was raised at a meeting of a small group of like-minded Rhode Islanders about a year ago. It has since been expanded to include members of 10 Rhode Island organizations as well as French officials in the area.
