Je suis franco-américaine et fière de l'être : Une anthologie d'écriture de femmes franco-américaines
Rhea Côté Robbins; Lanette Landry Petrie; Kristin Langellier; Kathryn Slott, Editors
This project was funded by a grant from the Women in the Curriculum, Women's Studies, University of Maine. The project gathered women's writings published in the bilingual, socio-cultural journal, Le F.A.R.O.G. Forum. This project focused on 20 years of women's words expressing their lives. Twenty-six copies were published from the original grant.
l to r: Lanette Landry Petrie; Kristin Langellier; Rhea Côté Robbins; Kathryn Slott, Editors
Contributors:
•Aubé, Elizabeth
•Roberge, Céleste
•Colin, Cécile
•Paradis, Francoise
•Bolduc, Claire
•DeRoche, Céleste
•Bouliane, Gretchen Richter
•Giguere, Madeleine
•Gagné, Eve
•Robbins, Bridget T.
•Simoneau, Irene
•Wolfe, Mary LaFleur
•Lachance, Gloria Gilbert
•Whitman, Nancy
•Vachon, Josée
•Doherty, Huguette Labbé
•Hébert, Angela
•Brière, Eloise
•Folger, Vina Thibeault
•Roseanna
•Hills, Deborah Clifton
•Guimont-Binette, Suzanne
•Coltart, Aimée
•Lachance, Pearly
•Lachance, Lisa
•Labbé, Juliette Thibodeau
•Colman, Mary Margaret Cyr
•Archambault, Flore Godbout
•Choiniere, Michelle M.
•Hatch, Marie Martel
•Gosselin, Lucille J.
•Godin, Yvonne
•Keaton, A.M. Pelletier
•Veilleux, Shasta
•Morin, Amy Bouchard
•Pinette, Elizabeth
•Perry, Maureen A.
•Paré, Suzanne
•Lucey, Anne
•Cook, Kimberly J.
•Vire, Stéphanie
•Perreault, Ms. Gene
•Morin-Scribner, Nicole
•Comeau, Monica
•Hatch, Marie Martel
•Michaud, Blanche St. Germain
•Messier, Armanda Barney
•Bolduc, Venney
•Bolduc, Suzanne
•Rouleau-Nedik, Christine
•Keaton, Arlene Pelletier
•Brière, Caroline
•Blanchard, Sylvia
•Labbé, Marie Rose
•Landry, Sister Mary Louise
•Stiles, Deborah
•Collier, Jr., John
•Delano, Jack
•Walas, Jack
•Poulin, Margaret "Daisy" Côté
•Hooper, Mary
•Bérubé, Georgette
•Paradis, Judy
•Filliette, Edith
•Albert, Earlene D.
•Brassard, Cécile
•Pelletier, Susann
•St. Pierre, Lorraine
•Bossé, Katie
•Hemphill, Jerry Ann Giroir
•Grondin, Joyce
•Chesley, Rita
•Makward, Christianne P.
•Miller, Judith G.
•Fuller, Jacquie Giasson
•Quirion, Cheryl
•Doherty, Kelly Labbé
•Blevins, Année Lynn
•St. Onge, Marie Louise
•Quemeneur, Jeanne
•Albrizio, Connie Magnan
The Women’s and Franco-American Anthology is a project and a process. I call it women and Franco-American, because for myself, I have determined that I am gender first and then cultural person. I would be a woman no matter wherever I went or did, born in Africa or India as well as my personal phenomenon of being female and Franco-American on the North American continent. In order to tell the story of how this anthology came about, I would either have to start at the beginning or go backwards. I would arrive at the same exact spot, the realization of this anthology of writings by women Franco-Americans. Female. That is what this anthology is all about. Being a woman and Franco-American.
The Franco-Americans. Those who had come to les États-Unis by a land bridge from Canada. To work in the mills, to hope, to own land, to live, and to be themselves. Generationally, we have been a people apart. Because we are of French origins. But now we are here. In the U.S. as a people without a means of complete access to self. We have been denied ourselves. And some abdicated in order to live. This anthology is a conscious process in renewing. Out of the inquiry of self, came the need to record, to publish, to test in the fires of the public the authentic expression.
The process was how four women from different backgrounds on the college campus and from the community came together to edit this work. Two faculty tenured professors, one professional editor and writer, and a support staff secretary began work on this anthology as a project to provide materials for the university classroom and also to break down barriers between the classism on college campuses. In part, it was done this way to prove that such a task could be done, and done well, completed, and used as a basis for future projects weaving community and academe.
It is imperative to bridge the “home” knowledge with the “institutional” knowledge. In order for there to be a partnership there needs to be two kinds of knowledge. No one should attempt work of the collectivity alone and as editors of this anthology, we are keenly aware of that. The community is a consciousness which provides the raw data for the anthology, but, more crucially, for the process of these women working across one another at our individual looms.
The interweaving of community and university is but one factor which determines the warp and weft of the weave. The many colored bobbins that move in and out of each pass on the loom, are comprised of many complex issues in bringing about such a project. The expectations of where cultural knowledge is based, and where it comes from, who are the guardians of the cultural knowledge—past, present and future, who can best attain the nuggets of the nuances of cultural knowledge, how do women live in a culture, and where do they express themselves. My deep interest in this project is to make the voices of the women public and valued.
We think our product reflects our own process—one not exempt from the “ouch!” because we are real with one another—a product with soup spilled on the working papers, a sharing, a cross mentoring, a confusion, a confessional, and a clarity. One where we struggled to acquire a place of honor and equality through our struggles and triumphs. A product not easily won, but an expression of bravery. As well.--Rhea Côté Robbins