i Franco-American history is the history of Maine
Morning Sentinel
Franco-American history is the history of Maine
Brian Bolduc Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel 03/04/2009

In 1992, an occupational study showed that 1 percent of men with French surnames held a professional salaried job in Maine.

This statistic is shocking given that in 2000, the census reported that nearly a quarter of Maine's population had a French surname and Maine had the largest percentage of French speakers in the entire country.

Growing up in New Auburn, in the shadow of Little Canada in Lewiston, provided me with a unique experience for a contemporary American: I was exposed to my cultural past. The spires of St. Louis Church crown this Franco ethnic enclave of Auburn and I can still remember my French-Canadian grandmother holding my hand when I was 5, to walk me across the now-named Peace Bridge into Lewiston where she would get her hair done by her French-speaking stylist.

"Survivance" is a term used by the French of Maine to refer to the importance of keeping alive the three pillars of French-North American society: language, religion and culture. This cultural cohesion was so important to a population that historically had to advocate for itself in New England to achieve social justice.

Many people today don't realize, for example, that the credit union, a financial cooperative system popular here in Maine, has its roots in the "French Bank," which was started in reaction to the financial discrimination of the New England banking institutions of the 1800s.

As late as 1922, the French residents of Biddeford had to hold off the Ku Klux Klan march coming into the city from across the river in Saco. My father's anecdotes from his experiences going to public schools in Auburn during the 1950s and being ridiculed for being French by his teachers is an example that comes closer to home.

In many ways, more subtle forms of institutional discrimination still exist, rooted in the history of French Americanization. Being the first in my family to go to college, and elected from my community to the Legislature, I never felt discriminated against for being French. I didn't have a French accent like my father had as a young child, and, as far as I was concerned growing up, I was as American as anyone else in our New Auburn neighborhood.

It was much later in life, when I decided I wanted to go to graduate school to become a teacher, that the legacy of cultural discrimination affected me.

Lewiston and Auburn make up the second largest metropolitan community in Maine, and yet the nearest educational training programs for my area and level of teacher certification are located in Gorham and Biddeford. One question in particular, nagged me over the years during my hours of commuting in pursuit of a graduate degree: Why can't I do this in Lewiston?

A brief study of the history of post-secondary education in the state reveals an ugly and obvious truth: I come from a Franco mill community where the state Legislature failed to establish a small college until the late 1970s.

This legislative session, as a state representative and a certified social studies teacher, I will submit legislation to incorporate Franco-American history and culture into the Maine learning results for social studies curriculum in our public schools. Currently, the state's directive to teachers fails to mention anything at all about this rich cultural past in the state's history. The inspiration for this bill came from a close mentor, Dr. Barry Rodrigue, professor of French studies at Lewiston Auburn College.

As Rodrigue wrote in his essay, "Renaissance: Franco-Maine in a new millennium," the "state of Maine penetrates into the heart of French Canada like an arrow. ... Since much of the state lies 'inside' of Canada and provides better access to the "mother country," Franco-American contacts with Canada have been better preserved in Maine than elsewhere in the United States."

The history of the French in Maine is not separate from the history of Maine as a political geographic unit, Maine history and culture is a part of French North American history. This heritage is not new. Indeed, the first known European arrivals in the area that is known as Maine came from France as members of the Verrazzano Expedition in 1524. The first European settlement in Maine took place with the French expedition of DeMonts and Champlain on Ste. Croix Island in 1604.

Rodrigue continues to note in his essay: "Much that has been produced in English by Anglo-American academics on the French in Maine -- over the last three decades -- has appeared within works about the wider region or more general topics. Frequently, such coverage is uneven. For example, among the eighty-eight articles published in the journal of the Maine Historical Society between 1990 and 1999, only seven dealt with Franco-American subjects. ... In 1990, amateur Historian Neil Rolde made a significant effort to document the contributions of French-Canadians and other ethnic groups in the State of Maine for his volume, 'Maine: A Narrative History.' However, when professional historians produced a history of Maine eight years later, 'Maine: The Pine Tree State from Prehistory to the Present,' not a single chapter was devoted to Franco-Americans."

Academic minors were established in 2000 in French North American Studies at the University of Southern Maine and in Franco-American Studies at the University of Maine in Orono, while the number of courses on Franco-America have multiplied in other institutions of higher education throughout the state.

I believe now the time has come to modestly incorporate this historically neglected yet major part of Maine's history and culture into our public school curriculum. I am proud to sponsor this legislation and look forward to beginning a career as a social studies teacher charged with the responsibility of survivance.

 

Brian Bolduc of Auburn is a Democratic state representative from House District 69, representing part of Auburn. He recently graduated from the University of New England teacher's certification program and serves on Legislature's Natural Resources Committee.

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