Join us at this week's meeting of the Philosophy Club virtually or in-person (Auerbach 320) this Wednesday, March 11 from 1 p.m.–2 p.m. as Albert J. Marceau presents a Brief Cultural Linguistic and Literary History of the French-Canadian Immigrants and Their Descendents to New England.
OVERVIEW:
Between the 1860s and 1930s, approximately 700,000 to 900,000 French-Canadians emigrated from Quebec to the United States, This massive migration, a diaspora of sorts known in French as la Grande Hémorragie, which saw roughly one-third of Quebec's population leave during this period, continued until the Great Depression in 1929 slowed the need for labor.
British policy toward Quebec played a significant role in fostering the conditions for the grande hémorragie (or grande saignée), the massive migration of French Canadians to the United States. While the peak migration occurred later (1840s–1930s), its roots lie in the early 19th-century British colonial policies, agricultural crises, and economic structures that limited opportunities for French Canadians in Lower Canada.
As with any diaspora, there are both tragic stories to be told and some history left either to be rewritten, or written for the first time.
The following presentation concerns itself with the cultural linguistic aspects of a people searching to have or maintain a voice and a purpose while being forced to undergo a radical language change from French to English; a mostly rural people not fully equipped with standard French, but saddled rather with the Quebecois dialect known as Joual.
The presentation is divided into two parts, the first is on the religious and nationalist sentiment in the preservation of the French language as expressed in the maxim “Qui perde sa langue, perde sa foi,” and the second part is an overview of works of literature, especially in French but also later increasingly in English, among French-Canadian authors who resided in the United States. Document attached.
Albert Marceau is a University of Hartford alumnus with a Masters- Degree in American History at Central Connecticut State University, is a lifelong student, both academically and from lived experience, of the French Canadian presence in the New England States.
He is the director, from 1997 to the present, of the French-Canadian Genealogical Society of Connecticut, a frequesnt contributing author to Le Forum, Journal of the Franco-American Centre at the University of Maine at Orono, and a researcher from 2000-2004 for the Lafayette Escadrille Exhibit at the New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks, Connecticut.
The University of Hartford Philosophy Club has an informal, jovial atmosphere. It is a place where students, professors, and people from the community at large meet as peers. Sometimes presentations are given, followed by discussion. Other times, topics are hashed out by the whole group.
Presenters may be students, professors, or people from the community. Anyone can offer to present a topic. The mode of presentation may be as formal or informal as the presenter chooses.
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