NOTES FROM THE HINTERLAND
ON BEING FRANCO-AMERICAN
By Laurie Meunier Graves
1.
Much has been
written about the real Maine, as though it’s an official place stamped on
the map by some divine source. It’s not in southern Maine, where the
tourists are allowed to run amok with nary a passport. It’s certainly not in
Portland, our biggest city, the Babylon of Maine, a place of bright lights
and fast living. And it most definitely isn’t in the writings of those who
are from away, even if the writing is so good that it leaves you spellbound.
Sanford Phippin, a Maine writer, thinks the real Maine is in Hancock, which
is near Mount Desert Island, where there are two kinds of people: those who
have money and those who do not. Carolyn Chute, another Maine writer, thinks
the real Maine is on a back road in an area which is so poor that a
ranch-style house looks like upward mobility.
My version of the real Maine is somewhat different. It’s not on the coast,
and it’s not on a back road. Indeed, I had no concept of either the
countryside or tourists until I was about seven years old. Instead, my real
Maine lies in the center of a mill town where the river runs dark and dirty
by huge brick factories. And at its very core are two entwined
concepts—being Franco-American and Catholic. They were so central to my
sense of identity as a child that it came as a shock when I discovered that it
was different for the rest of the world.
As a young child, I would never say, “I am an American.” Or, “I am a
Mainer.” It was always, “I am French.” It was the same way with my parents
and my grandparents. How could this be? France was way across the ocean, and
my forebears had migrated many, many years before any of us were born. None
of my relatives had either stories or memories of France. We were rooted
firmly in Maine—five generations on one side and at least four on the
other—yet we considered ourselves to be French. Even today, it amazes me to
think of it. All that time here, and we still didn’t belong.
What was it that separated us from the culture at large? Was it our
language? Was it our religion? Was it our dark hair and complexion? Was it
class? Was it our concept of community? Was it a combination of all these
things? After many years of thinking about this, I’ve started to piece
together the story.
2.
To complicate matters even further, I
must admit that I do not speak French, even though it was my mother’s first
language. She did not learn to speak English until she started school, and
this was long before there were special classes to help such students.
French was, of course, her mother’s first language, and I have no idea when
my grandmother learned to speak English. My great-grandmother never did
speak English, but I am told she understood more than she would admit. It
seems that when she moved to central Maine from northern Maine, she did try
to learn English. But people made fun of her accent, of the way she said
things, and she was too embarrassed—or, stubborn, as my father would say—to
continue.
My great-grandfather was hardier. “It’s four o’clocks,” he would say
cheerfully, even though people made fun of him. And, he would pronounce
‘interpret’ exactly the way it was spelled. People laughed at him, but he
learned, and I am sorry that I never met this gutsy man who had huge hands
and lost his farm in North Caribou during the depression and died too young
of tuberculosis.
French, of course, swirled around me as a child. I did not have a Nana or a
Grammy; I had a Memere, and the one word was good for all three of my
grandmothers. When I wanted to be specific about which grandmother I was
talking about, I would add their last names. I picked up phrases, not all of
them nice, and I learned to roll the letter r. Later I would discover that
this was yet another source of shame, but this time the disapproval came
from another direction. It seems that real French speakers do not roll the
letter r.
My father never spoke French, and it was never spoken in his house. Unlike
my mother’s family, who lived in northern Maine where French was always the
first language, my father lived in a part of Maine that was solidly English
speaking. No one has ever said this, but it’s my guess that his parents did
not want him or his brothers and sister to learn French. Legislation had
been passed to prohibit children from speaking French at school, and
children who did were forced to write on the blackboard, “I will not speak
French.”
Oddly enough, even though my father didn’t know French, he sometimes spoke
as though English were his second language. His habit of mispronouncing
words was almost comical, but we, of course, did not laugh at him. He was
not that kind of father. Somehow, I can see the connection between him and
my mother’s grandfather, even though they never met. And I must admit that
I have a habit of mispronouncing words, of intellectually embarrassing
myself.
Whether we spoke French or not, the language, with its lilting cadence was
always there, hovering just on the edge of our consciousness. When I went to Québec or Montréal or Paris, even though I really didn’t understand the
language, French tugged at something in the back of my mind. Why haven’t I
learned to speak French? In truth, the attempt to master English, with the
slippery-fish contours of its grammar, is all that I can handle. In a way,
I’m like my father and my great-grandfather, and English feels like a second
language for me, too.
3.
When was I first aware that there were
Protestants? I think it was when I was in first grade at Sacred Heart
School. There was a boy named Eddie who sat not far from me, and he had
sandy blond hair. He was a quiet boy, but he seemed to be no different than
anyone else. So it came as a shock when I learned he was a Protestant. A
Protestant? What was he doing at Sacred Heart School? “My parents think it’s
a good school,” he said simply. And it was a good school, far better than
the country school that I would go to in two years. However, that was in the
future, unknown, of course. In the meantime, while I was at Sacred Heart,
whenever I looked at Eddie, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. Poor
thing, I would think. How can he stand not being Catholic?
I loved everything about being a Catholic, and I have none of the bitter
memories that many so-called lapsed Catholics have. I loved the big stone
churches, dark and cool, with the brilliant stained-glass windows. I loved
the smell of the incense and the chanting in Latin. I loved the statues of
the saints and the stories that went with them. But I especially loved the
Virgin Mary, with her smooth, serene face and her outstretched arms. Come, she
seemed to say, there’s room for everyone.
Later, I would learn that not everyone felt the same way about the Catholic
Church and that lapsed Catholics were certainly not the harshest critics. At
work, a coworker told my father that he would rather have his daughter marry
an African-American than a Catholic. Except he didn’t say it that politely.
Later still, I learned about the Ku Klux Klan’s history in Maine and how
their targets were primarily Catholic Franco-Americans. In 1920, Maine’s
population was 768,000. In 1924, membership in the Maine Ku Klux Klan was
50,000 and growing. My mother-in-law remembers seeing pictures in her local
newspaper of a Klan parade in a nearby town. Why was the Klan such a strong
presence in Maine? The story is all too familiar. Those who joined the Klan
were the business leaders of Maine. They were white, prosperous, and
Protestant, and they were afraid that the Catholic Franco-Americans, who
worked in their mills, would organize. The business leaders used a
time-honored method to keep their workers under control, and that method was
fear.
Franco-Americans understood all too well what was at stake, and although
they never abandoned their religion, they kept a low profile. They kept such
a low profile that it was only in 1977 that Maine recognized
Franco-Americans as an ethnic group, even though they had been here for
hundreds of years.
My great-grandparents, my grandparents, and even my parents lived during
this time of intimidation and burning crosses. They worked in the factories.
They knew who owned the mills. Perhaps they even knew who marched in the
Klan parades.
4.
A strange sort of inferiority comes with
language repression and fear. In an essay about the filmmaker Roman Polanski,
Terrence Rafferty writes about the movie The Tenant. The main
character is a Polish exile, and “the older, established tenants in the
building [where he lives] treat this unassuming little man, Trelkovsky, as
if he were a mortal threat to their peace of mind, and so, gradually,
insidiously, they destroy him. Everything they say, every suspicious look
they direct at him tells Trelkovsky that he is not one of them. Eventually,
and perhaps inevitably, Trelkovsky internalizes his neighbors’ view of him,
and winds up totally alienated from himself: barking mad.”
Barking mad. How else to explain why a five year old would look in the
mirror, see her hair, which was nearly black, and feel that something was
terribly wrong? Out in the sun she would go. She had heard that if she
stayed in the sun long enough, it would bleach her hair. It didn’t work, of
course. Instead, she got a tan that was nearly as dark as her hair.
At Sacred Heart, there was a girl named Dawn who was as blonde as blonde could
be. She had soft pink cheeks to go with that blonde hair and lovely pale
arms. Dawn was the teacher’s pet. She was the one who was always called on
to pass out papers. She won all the class prizes. She could color better
than anyone else, and everyone wanted to sit next to her.
Is this all true? Probably not, but that is how I remember her. And in
the mirror, looking back at me was a girl with hair so dark that even the
sun wouldn’t bleach it. On television, there were commercials that asked if
it was true that blondes had more fun, and I knew I would never know. Never.
I have been asked if I was a Native American. I have been asked if I was
Lebanese. No, I would explain patiently, I am Franco-American. But when I
went to Québec, Montréal, and Paris, people would start talking to me in
French, assuming that I could speak the language. They knew which ethnic
group I belonged to, because I looked like many of the people on the
streets, and for the first time in my life, I got a glimpse of what it would
be like to fit in with the larger culture.
But then, of course, I had to come home. Vacations don’t last forever.
5.
I’ve heard many times that there’s no shame in being poor,
but it’s simply not true. There’s plenty of shame, especially in a country
that places such a high value on big houses, big cars, and material
possessions.
My father’s family was poor. They always had enough to eat, and they always
had a place to live, but they had patches on their clothes at a time when it
was not fashionable to have them. My father lived in a mill town and was
born when the Klan was still strong in Maine. All of his family worked in
factories. Everyone knew his or her place, and by the time my father was a
teenager, he knew exactly where he fit in.
Except he was smart, the smartest in his class. He didn’t want to take shop
courses, as they were called then. Instead, he wanted to study literature
and math and science. However, in the school system, there were people who
could remind my father of who he was and where he fit in. “You will never go
to college,” the guidance counselor told him. “College courses would just be
a waste of time.” So my father took shop courses.
Class is a funny thing. It is both visible and invisible. It’s as though
there is some great celestial force that comes down on us when we are young
and seals our fate. We don’t even have to say a word. Our very looks, our
own body movements expose us. Yes, in America, it is possible to transcend
class, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Especially in a small state where
there is a large group of people in power fervently devoted to
maintaining a class system.
6.
To get a true
sense of what a Franco-American community is like, you have to drive north
to Aroostook County. You have to go past Bangor and Houlton. You have to
drive past miles and miles of trees where you can, at times, catch a glimpse
of a moose or a bald eagle. At one point in the drive, you can see
beautiful, regal Mount Katahdin in outline against a deep blue sky. Still,
you must drive farther, through a countryside with so many hills and lakes
that it feels as though you’re in Vermont.
Then, when you’re almost not in Maine anymore, you are there. Fort Kent,
Madawaska, and Saint Agatha sit at the top of the state, and the land is so
fine and open that it makes you blink in astonishment. There are few big
houses, but everything is neat, clean, and symmetrical. Driveways are swept, cars are washed and waxed on Saturday, and the outsides of the houses
get a good scrubbing. Somehow, even the factory in Madawaska doesn’t look as
dirty as most factories do. And, it goes without saying that everywhere
there are churches and statues of my childhood favorite, the Virgin Mary.
Strangers, even tourists, are welcomed into the community. Once, when I was
staying at a motel in Saint Agatha, the woman who worked at the desk nagged
me in the same affectionate way that my own Memere would have nagged me. I
was going to go for a ride on my bicycle. As I passed through the lobby, the
woman wagged her finger at me and said, “Now you be careful. The wind is
blowing off the lake. It’s going to be hard to pedal.” And she was
absolutely right. The pedaling was so hard that it felt as though I were
going uphill, even though the road was flat.
The longer you stay, the more you realize that although there are few
concerts and plays and big houses, this area has something that’s missing
from most places in the United States. What it has is a sense of community.
No one is too busy to talk and tell stories. Recommendations for restaurants
are given with a zeal seldom found in other parts of the state. After all,
“There are a lot of good places to eat up here.”
Community and family are central to Franco-Americans. In general (alas,
there have been exceptions), there is a cultural acceptance that it is a
moral responsibility to help individuals who are down on their luck. This
can be done through the family, the church or the government, but there is
seldom any question as to whether it should be done. This attitude, while
strong in northern Maine, did not stay there. It is a cultural inheritance
that went with Franco-Americans wherever they went, and it put them at odds
with the larger culture and its emphasis on the individual.
According to Ben Levine, a Maine filmmaker, businessmen in the early 1900s
thought that with their emphasis on community, Franco-Americans would be
swayed by the ideas of workers’ rights and, worse yet, even communism. This,
of course, brings us back to the Klan and “the wedge of terror” it formed to
stop the Franco-Americans from organizing.
Northern Aroostook County, which is close to Canada and is geographically
remote from the rest of the state, escaped this intimidation. As a
Franco-American, you feel an unaccustomed freedom when you go to this
beautiful place with the big sky and meet the gregarious people who live
there. They don’t seem to be ashamed of who they are, how they look, and how
they speak.
7.
This story has a hopeful
ending. In the 1960s, things began to change. In the South, there was the
civil rights movement, and with it came the notion that the Klan’s
repressive, violent methods were wrong, not just there but everywhere. In
Rome, there was a pope who brought a new openness to the Catholic Church,
and at the same time, many Protestant ministers started doing the same thing
with their churches. Gradually, Catholics and Protestants could visit each
other’s churches, become friends, and, despite what my father’s coworker
said, even get married.
The great factories became still as manufacturing moved to places that had a
cheaper work force. First, it was to the South, then it was to Mexico, and
finally they went overseas. As the old saying goes, it’s an ill wind that
blows no good. While it’s true that the loss of the factories devastated the
economy in Maine, it’s also true that their departure gave the
Franco-Americans a freedom that they had never had. The old power structure
faded with the loss of the factories, and finally Franco-Americans began to
come into their own. They began to go to college. They began to appear in
state government. One has even made it to the House of Representatives in
Washington, D.C.
Unfortunately, with freedom and power comes the potential for abuse, and
Franco-Americans are no more immune to this than any other ethnic group is.
Recently, the Franco-American mayor of Lewiston, in a stunning disregard of
the notion of community, effectively told recent Somali immigrants that they
were not welcome in the city. This set in motion a chain of events that,
given the history of Franco-Americans, can only be viewed as sadly ironic. A
white supremacist group came to Maine to rally against the Somali
immigrants. I am happy to report that their rally was a complete failure and
attracted only a handful of people. However, not far away, a counter-rally
drew thousands of people. And many who came were Franco-Americans who were
mortified by what the mayor had said.
On a more personal note, I am also happy to report that my own father did
eventually go to college, even though he had an ambivalence about education
that would stay with him all his life. He always thought of himself as a
poor working-class boy, despite the fact that he became a computer systems
analyst.
However, one day as my father’s mother was doing errands in town, a
prominent businessman stopped her. He had seen a picture of my father in the
paper and the story of his promotion. “My,” he said, “isn’t Ronald doing
well.”
Yes, indeed. And, slowly, slowly, the Maine of Franco-Americans is becoming
as real as the Maine of Sanford Phippin and Carolyn Chute.
