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• “I Didn’t Know I was French” :: 

“I Didn’t Know I was French”
Women and the Remnants of Franco-American Culture in 21st Century Maine

By Mary Ellms

Introduction
Genealogical and ethnic heritage research has experienced a recent resurgence in American culture (Murphy, 2014; Rodriguez, 2014; Schuessler, 2013). Genealogy is believed to be the second most popular hobby in the United States, and online companies dealing with ancestral records are now worth billions of dollars (Farnham, 2012). Yet this renewed interest in heritage begs one major thought: If genealogical research is currently trending, it had to have been nonexistent or on a much smaller scale before. So where did ties to heritage go? Who used to complete genealogical research? Why is there a change now?
Rodriguez (2014) posits that genealogy has long been the turf of wealthy white people, many of whom studied their heritage to establish hereditary purity. He argued that changing gender roles and immigration assimilation in the 20th century led to an increased interest in self-knowledge and exploration. Simply put, more people are exploring their ancestry because, for all but the white elites, their histories have been lost, forgotten, or deliberately hidden. Therein lies the root of my own research questions.
People of color often have difficulty researching their ancestry because so many were not included in censuses, especially before the Civil War, and because the research may have to include investigating the lines of slaveholders as well as their own families (Schuessler, 2013; Velazquez, 2013). White people, regardless of their ethnic heritage, generally have access to more records and better genealogical information than people of color. Yet predominantly white ethnic groups face their own genealogical challenges. Many of these groups - most notably Irish, Italian, and Jewish peoples - were assimilated during an “Americanization” process in the early 20th century. This included English language requirements at schools and jobs, as well as courses to learn American cooking and homemaking skills (Saverino, n.d., p. 2).
An oft overlooked but similarly assimilated people are the French, particularly French Canadians. Approximately 900,000 French Canadians moved to the United States from Quebec between 1840 and 1930 (Belanger & Belanger, 2000). Over 10 million Americans currently claim some French heritage, accounting for more than 3% of the U.S. population (United States Census Bureau, 2013). Due to forced assimilation in the early 20th century, many French people disassociated from their ethnic heritage, so it is possible that the true number of French descendants in the United States is much higher. This then begs the question of what remains of French culture in the United States, multiple generations after the major French migrations into the country. When a people have been forced to abandon their language, religion, and traditions, what remains for their descendants to hold on to?
Saverino (n.d.) claimed that “[w]omen were seen as the ones who would pass on American culture to their families.” If this is true, can the same be said for French culture? If so, what happened to prevent women from sharing French traditions with their families? Or did they share it, just in ways that are less visible? This paper aims to address these questions through a narrow geographical lens. Although much could be said about the state of Franco-American culture nationwide, that scope is much too broad for the purposes of this paper. Instead, I will focus on the state of Maine, which geographically juts into the French Canadian provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick and has Franco-Americans accounting for nearly 25% of its population (Myall, 2012, p. 3). Which aspects of French culture have historically been central to its people? How have those traditions changed? What aspects of that original culture remain today?

Franco-American Culture in Maine
To begin to understand what remains of Franco-American culture in the state of Maine, we must first define what Franco-American culture is. This is not an easily accomplished task, and I do not dare to suggest that I can provide a definitive answer. Culture itself is a hard term to pin down and means different things to different people. Therefore, instead of trying to define something concretely, I have taken a backdoor approach. How do people talk about Franco-American culture? What do they include? What do they exclude? In this particular study, I started by examining what subjects come up most frequently during discussions of Franco-American culture.
Three major cultural areas emerged during my readings. There were many more cultural areas to explore, but most of them connected somehow or stemmed from these three major areas. First and foremost was employment. Many documents I referenced in this research addressed employment as the primary historical motive for French Canadian relocation (e.g. Belanger & Belanger, 2000; Theriault, n.d.). Several also mentioned the frequency with which Franco-Americans were employed either in mill or factory work or in some form of agriculture (e.g. Allen, 1974; Theriault, n.d.). Not only did economics drive French Canadian relocation, it determined how long immigrants stayed and how they identified as residents in their new country (Craig, 1986, p. 290-1; Theriault, n.d., p. 13). Employment, or lack thereof, seemed to be a huge factor in Franco-American culture, both pre- and post-migration.
Second was religion. In this particular case, the primary religion was Roman Catholicism, and it dominated much of Franco-American life. Roman Catholicism guided everything from education to family size to gender roles (Allen, 1974, p. 49-50; Theriault, n.d., p. 6-7). It even guided the way the French viewed Native Americans, since “their Catholic sense” said that everyone had a soul that was “precious to God” (Potter, 2008). Like employment, faith appeared in multiple articles and seemed to be central to Franco-American life.
The third and final major area was language. For decades, the French language dominated Franco-American culture, and its decline in the state of Maine is still an acutely felt loss for many (Belluck, 2006; Williams, 2015). Again, the language was closely tied to where Franco-Americans were able to find work, where they attended school, and how they interacted with their neighbors (Allen, 1974, p. 49-50). The Franco-Americans even had a saying, Qui perd sa langue perd sa foi, meaning “Who loses his language, loses his faith” (Belluck, 2006). This demonstrates the central roles of faith and language in Franco-American culture, since the loss of either or both constituted a loss of identity.
As previously mentioned, these three major cultural areas connect to several others: education, family, music, art, etc. These are the aspects of culture that are easy to see and discuss. The less visible aspects include beliefs, expectations, attitudes, and biases (Janine’s Music Room, 2014). Though I may be able to touch upon these “invisible” cultural traits, I cannot completely dissect or explain them within the parameters of this paper. To do so would require a great deal more qualitative research, although these would be excellent further steps to take in the future. Instead, I will focus on the three major cultural areas, examining their history and their present in the state of Maine before turning to women in particular and evaluating their role in these cultural areas.

Employment
Researchers have listed a multitude of reasons for why French Canadians relocated to the United States between 1840 and 1930. One explanation was “urbanization” (Ramirez, 2001, p. 68). Another was answering “the call of the textile mills that needed new workers” (Moran, 2004, p. 111). Another attributed the immigration to “the manufacturing boom in New England [that] not only produced jobs that needed to be filled, but it also offered a fast-paced and modernized lifestyle that was an alluring change from the lives they had known in agrarian Canada” (Theriault, n.d., p. 13). Yet another said “economic opportunities were so much better south of the border” (Allen, 1974, p. 39). All of these explanations refer to some magnetic pull the United States had in attracting people from French Canada. But if they were happy at home, why would they leave?
Moran (2004) offered a brief explanation of what was happening that made French Canadians more willing to relocate (p. 111-3). He described how most of them came from rural Quebec, where they lived hardscrabble lives, producing everything they needed to survive (e.g. food, clothing). Because of their self-sufficiency, these people felt connected to their land. Yet Quebec came under British rule in 1763, and the French living there received few rights or privileges. Not only did the government not support the French, the “land was worn out from too much planting, and crops were lean” (p. 113). It should come as no surprise, then, that so many French Canadians opted to cross the border to the south in search of both better employment opportunities and better government treatment.
Allen (1974) claimed that French Canadians relocated to Maine in four distinct waves (p. 36-43). Firstly, French Acadians, primarily from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, settled the St. John River Valley. This area is where Northern Maine meets New Brunswick and Quebec today. These French settlers were overwhelmingly involved in agriculture.
The second wave included seasonal workers from Quebec settling in Central and Southern Maine. As Allen (1974) wrote: “In those early years most individuals rejoined their families in Quebec when the jobs were finished, but economic opportunities were so much better south of the border that increasing numbers decided to move permanently to Maine” (p. 39). This population of French Canadians had been fairly mobile, crossing the border multiple times as finances required, but eventually elected to remain in Maine.
The third and fourth waves involved French Canadians moving to the manufacturing and mill locations in Maine. The majority of these factories worked with textiles or with pulp and paper. These migrations included new immigrants from French Canada, as well as French people already living in Maine who were looking for higher wages (p. 40-41).
The end result of these four waves of migration was that the overwhelming majority of French Canadians in Maine were employed in one of three industries: agriculture, textile manufacturing, or pulp and paper manufacturing. Despite a massive decline in agriculture and manufacturing in Maine over the past century, Myall (2012) found that Franco-Americans are still “slightly more likely to be engaged in farming or manufacturing than their peers statewide” (p. 4). He attributed the current agricultural base to the Franco-American population still involved in farming in the St. John Valley (p. 4). Due to the decrease in manufacturing jobs statewide, Franco-Americans hold fewer manufacturing jobs than a century ago, but they are still slightly more likely to work in manufacturing than non-Francos (p. 4).
Myall (2012) also pointed out that Franco-Americans are less likely than other Mainers to have a college degree and less likely to work in management or business positions, but are more likely to be working. He attributed these facts to an historic trend of low education levels among Franco-Americans, to that lack of education preventing Franco-Americans from attaining leadership positions, and to a cultural attitude that encourages Franco-Americans to keep busy and to keep working (p. 4).
So what does this mean for Franco-Americans in Maine today? Nearly one century after the first waves of French Canadian immigration, Franco-Americans in Maine are still struggling for education and thus are struggling for employment that requires higher education. Nevertheless, Franco-Americans still possess a work ethic that keeps them in the workforce in ways that they always have been.

Religion
Probably more recognizable than employment as a part of Franco-American culture was Roman Catholicism. In fact, none of the articles I read for this project mentioned any non-Catholic French Canadians who moved to the United States. Perhaps any non-believers or doubters had to keep their thoughts to themselves since Catholicism was so entrenched in French Canadian culture, or perhaps there really were no non-believers among those who moved to the U.S. Nevertheless, it is clear that faith was a huge part of daily life for Franco-Americans.
Allen (1974) reported, “The establishment of a Catholic elementary school was often the first concern of the pastor in a growing Franco-American community” (p. 49). These communities felt it was vital to educate their children through parochial schools, not through the public schools of the towns in which they lived. These parochial schools originally focused on teaching subjects like religion and French Canadian history in French, although, with the later decline in French language use, the schools eventually stopped teaching Canadian history and morphed into general Catholic schools (p. 49-50).
Catholicism also guided the social structure within Franco-American communities. Priests and their families were at the top of the social ladder, with landowners and various other occupations falling in line behind them (Theriault, n.d., p. 6). Priests were the leaders of their communities and set standards and expectations for their parishioners to meet. Since they recognized the banality of the factory and farm work of their parishioners, priests “taught the people that hard work was their destiny, that they were born to suffer in this life, but that they should not blame society” (Moran, 2004, p. 131). Franco-Americans had the utmost respect for their priests, seeking blessings and permission for various life tasks, and praying for their children to one day become priests or nuns (p. 131). Their dependence upon their faith meant that Catholicism had massive influence over everything they did, especially how they ran their families. Men were expected to head their households with authority, and women were expected to give birth to and raise many children (Theriault, n.d., p. 8-10). The family unit was seen as a representation of the Church itself, “a module of faith and discipline that could serve as example of family members’ devotion to God as they attempted to spread the Gospel” (p. 6).
Despite the dwindling number of church attendees in the state of Maine today (Newport, 2015), Catholicism still claims the largest percentage of Mainers out of any religion (Harrison & McCrea, 2015). As recently as 1985, Franco-Americans were identified as almost 100 percent of the Catholic population in Maine, yet Maine had never had a Franco-American Roman Catholic bishop (Hillinger, 1985). Since the U.S. Census Bureau no longer asks about religious affiliations (United States Census Bureau FAQs, n.d.), Myall (2012) did not have any religious data to work with. Nonetheless, he still saw evidence of Catholic traditions and culture in the data. He found that Franco-American families are still slightly larger than non-Francos and that Franco-American women still have a slightly higher fertility rate, but that Franco-American rates of divorce and unmarried childbirth matched those of non-Francos (p. 3).
Overall, it is difficult to assess exactly how the role of religion has changed in Franco-Americans lives. It is clear that families with a dozen children and towns with their own Franco-American priests and French masses are mostly a thing of the past, but some conservative Catholic traditions and ideals remain (Bayly & Harrison, 2015).

Language
Perhaps the strongest and also weakest cultural aspect of Franco-American life in Maine was the use of the French language. Previously mentioned was the common belief that Franco-Americans who stopped using French would lose their religion. We have already seen how vital Catholicism was in the day-to-day lives of Franco-Americans. Similarly, we have seen that Franco-Americans began their own parochial schools for the purposes of teaching Catholicism and French. The two seem almost inseparable, and indeed, many Franco-Americans thought they were. Losing one or the other meant their entire identities unraveled.
Franco-Americans tended to band together once in the United States, in communities that became known as petits Canadas (Ramirez, 2001, p. 78). In addition to helping to preserve their religion and traditions, petits Canadas also allowed the French language to remain intact. As Ramirez (2001) pointed out, people initially felt no obligation to learn English because they were living in communities where everyone spoke French (p. 74). By the 1920s and 30s, however, Franco-Americans had begun to realize how economically valuable speaking English would be in their new homeland (Allen, 1974, p. 49-50). Not speaking English often barred them from becoming U.S. citizens, which prevented them from fully participating in civic life (Moran, 2004, p. 129). They also faced increasing persecution from the Ku Klux Klan and others who were fearful of their language, religion, and economic power (Richard, 2009). Due to this outside pressure, Franco-American parents stopped actively teaching their children French, hoping this would shield them from discrimination in the future (Chase, 1998).
Theriault (n.d.) summarized the importance of language well: “The French language, a means for the Quebecois to distinguish and validate their culture as separate from that of anglicized Canada, was the thread that connected religion, motherhood and domesticity; it ran through songs, stories, masses, and other cultural texts” (p. 6). For many Franco-Americans, the language was the primary means of connection to their native homeland. Since so many Franco-Americans crossed the border multiple times as work and family demanded, it seems only natural that they wanted to maintain language ties to Quebec (Ramirez, 2001, p. 78-9). It was only when French Canadians began to settle in Maine and the rest of the United States that the ability to speak only French became more of a burden.
In modern times, Myall (2012) found that French “is no longer central to Franco identity” (p. 5). Only 12.3 percent of those who identified as Franco-American claimed to speak any language other than English, and only 2.3 percent said they spoke English poorly, indicating that their primary language was probably French (p. 5). This is in very stark contrast to the original French Canadian immigrants who so valued their language that they set up their own schools to pass it on to their children. This is perhaps an indication of the degree to which Franco-Americans have started to consider themselves simply “American” and begun to detach from their French heritage. Interestingly enough, Hussey (2009) identified storytelling and writing as central tenets of Franco-American culture (p. 3). Perhaps, too, as Franco-Americans have become more “American,” they have continued their cultural habits in English instead of in French.

Women
So what role did women play in this cultural transmission from Quebec to Maine? What role do Franco-American women play today in passing on these traditions? To answer those questions, I must answer one that is a bit more pressing: Why even address women at all in this context? We cannot definitively say that “only women did this” or “only men did that,” so what is the point of drawing out women at all? For me, the point is very personal and, I fear, more widespread than just my family.
I didn’t know I was French. I didn’t know I was anything, really, other than a Mainer. I heard about Maine’s Franco-Americans during high school classes and my time volunteering with a local historical society, but I had no reason to consider myself one of them. I didn’t speak French, and no one in my family did. I was not Catholic, but a few cousins of mine were, but only because their Methodist mother had to convert when she married a Catholic man. My family was not involved in agriculture or factory work, even though we lived in an area where both were popular. My last name is not French. I didn’t fit the stereotypes in any way, and so being Franco-American was never a possibility for me.
Imagine my surprise when one of my maternal cousins completed a genealogy project and announced that our great-grandmother was born in Quebec and that our great-grandfather was born in Maine to French Canadian parents. When I went through the genealogical research myself, I discovered that members of my maternal line had been living in what is now Quebec since the 1600s and that those members frequently crossed the border between Quebec and Maine. Many of my ancestors were born on one side of the border and died on the other. This is what motivated this research project, the desire to understand how I could be Franco-American and not know it. Where had my family separated from Franco-American culture? Why?
This led me to the realization that many of my most recent ancestors were French Canadian and Franco-American women who had lived on both sides of the border. I wondered what had happened. What caused them to abandon their heritage? Or did they? Do I possess aspects of this culture that I am not actively aware of?
Katherine Theriault (n.d.) did an excellent job exploring some of these questions in her article, “‘It Was Not a Life of Roses’: Franco-American Women from Quebec to New England.” She addressed each of the three major cultural areas – employment, religion, and language – and teased out what little information is available about women’s roles in those areas. Regarding employment, she detailed the traditional female roles in Quebec and the consequences for women who dared to violate them. Women were expected to put their priorities as mothers first and thus obtain more glory than most men (with the exception of priests). Women who did not do this would receive harsher punishments than men for violating their true purpose (p. 10). The only other acceptable role for a woman was becoming a nun (p. 12). Toward the end of the 19th century, however, many women began to move out of the domestic sphere and into schoolhouses and factories (p. 10-11; Moran, 2004, p. 116). If they were able to find work, these women were often treated poorly, since they were presumed to be shirking their responsibilities at home. Some companies wouldn’t even hire mothers out of fear of damaging their families (Moran, 2004, p. 117). This makes it clear that French Canadian women did not always have options. If they did not want to marry, have children, or become nuns, they faced the ridicule of their communities. Yet once in the United States, French Canadian families were desperate for extra money. This led to a rise in young Franco-American girls filling factories and mills, since they were old enough to work but too young for marriage, and thus not committing any serious gender infractions by working (Theriault, n.d., p. 15).
Religion played a huge role in these gender expectations, and was, perhaps, even their primary cause. Catholicism taught that it was God’s will for women to focus on their families and other domestic chores, so the only way they could fulfill God’s purpose for their lives was by marrying, producing children, and managing household affairs (p. 21). The way a woman maintained her home showed her “dedication to her family” since “cleanliness and order were proof of her love for them” (p. 7). Women were even held responsible for maintaining propriety throughout courtship: they were responsible if they danced with men or were held or touched by men (p. 7). Even though they were taught from a very early age that their purpose in life was to get married, they were not permitted to actively pursue that goal. And for women who chose the convent, their purpose was still governed by their sexuality (or lack thereof). Theriault rightfully pointed out that under these gender expectations, women essentially became genderless: as nuns, they were associated with men because of their religious fervor, and as wives and mothers, they sacrificed their identities for the sakes of their families (p. 12). It was only after entering the United States and venturing outside the home that many of the French Canadian women began to realize their own potential.
Language use by women is a bit more difficult to tease out. There are no records of who stopped speaking French and when. Yet Theriault pointed out women’s role in maintaining French culture in the home:
Women were the first line of cultural defense in staving off assimilation attempts, for they interacted with their children on a day-to-day basis long before they were exposed to non-Franco culture and society. In America, women remained their children’s first teachers of French language and the precepts of the Roman Catholic Church. (p. 21)
We have already seen the importance of parochial schools in educating Franco youth in Catholicism and French language, and women, specifically nuns, were very involved in running those schools. Nuns were still subordinate to priests, however, and so even these women did not have the final say in school decisions (p. 23-4). Even though women were considered the “keepers of the French-Canadian language” (p. 24), increasing pressure from local governments and non-Francos made Franco-American women skeptical about what was best for their children. Should they continue to teach their children French, even though it meant discrimination, or should they enable their children to learn English so that they might have better futures in the United States?
The lack of francophones in Maine today is evidence that the outside pressure became too great for many women. I see this in my own family. I learned that my grandmother once spoke French. I asked her to say something in French, and she said she didn’t remember any. I asked her why she stopped speaking it, and she struggled to find an answer. “That’s just the way it was,” she said. As a result, my mother never learned it, and even though I took a few years of French in high school, I don’t remember a lot that would help me visit Quebec someday or have a conversation with anyone. Kim Chase’s (1998) essay Ca fait mal partout is evidence that my family’s loss of language is only one of many similar stories. Chase’s mother refused to speak French around her upon the recommendation of a nun (p. 2). When Chase learned French at a public high school, it was a very proper French, and not the dialect or kind of French that her mother spoke (p. 3). Chase described the absence of French in her life as “an ache like a part of me I’ve lost and can’t recover” (p. 3). So while it’s clear that few Franco-Americans today are francophones, it’s also clear that the loss of the French language is palpable and something many Franco-Americans regret.

Conclusion
So where does this leave us? What remains of that original French Canadian/Franco-American culture? If I’m not Catholic and don’t speak French, are there other cultural traits and traditions in my life that still represent that long-lost French Canadian heritage?
Although their numbers are dwindling compared to a century ago, Catholic churches still dominate in Maine. 163 towns in Maine still have a Catholic church, so you are never too far from one (Cities, n.d.). As of 2015, though, only one French language Catholic mass remains in the state (Bayly & Harrison, 2015). French immersion and reacquisition classes are appearing across the state, to help children learn French for the first time and to help adults regain the French they lost, but they are still few and far between (Belluck, 2006). As was mentioned before, the employment opportunities of my French Canadian ancestors have mostly vanished. So what is left?
Hard work. Faith. Love of language. Family. Education. Community.
Are these traits unique to Franco-American people? Of course not. Other groups value the same things in many different ways. But I see evidence of my Franco-American heritage in these traits, even though mine may not line up perfectly with my great-grandmother’s. I frequently work too hard, to the point where I have to be told by my boss to take a sick day. I am religious, even though I’m not Catholic. I love to write and read and play with words, even if it’s in English instead of French. I am devoted to my family and make sacrifices for their betterment. I am a teacher and insistent upon the importance of education. I believe in the value of community and the age-old tenet that “it takes a village to raise a child.”
This is my Franco-American heritage. Not a specific religion or language or job, but an attitude, a way of life. For me, being Franco-American means making the best of what you’ve got. It means putting your family and community first. It means believing in something bigger than yourself. It means sharing your story and finding ways to express your thoughts and ideas with your community. I’m only sorry that this concept of Franco-American identity somehow got lost along the way. This is what remains. This is Franco-American culture for me.


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