Being French in North America: Quebec Culture and Globalization

My task in the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations panel on Death of the Nation State? was to examine the difficult, yet fascinating theme of the complex and controversial relationships that exist between Quebecois and American cultures. This is only the first phase of a larger and more thorough analysis of the socioeconomic interaction between these cultures. From the start, it is important to underscore that this paper is not based upon statistical evidence--rather, it offers an overview of the creative cultural processes now happening in Quebec society. The paper furthermore reflects study and observations on diverse Quebecois cultural productions, such as cinema, music, literature, theatre, and dance. By deconstructing the Quebecois Social Imaginary, I will suggest how the particular relationship that Quebec has developed with the American cultural reality not only differs from that between Anglo-Canadian society and the United States, but also has acquired a unique configuration over t ime. (1) The main focus of this analysis will be on understanding how (l'Americanite) has been integrated into Quebec's collective Social Imaginary. It is important to stress that the American influence on Quebecois cultural identity has always been a very important, yet divisive issue in Quebec's cultural, social, and political reality. The acceptance of American influence by the urban working-class masses was doubled because of its fierce rejection by the rural masses and their traditional elites. The urban masses saw America's influence as a tool of emancipation from the conservative ideological hold of that past. The rural masses and their elites, on the other hand, saw this as a negative, regressive influence that was evil, morally corrupt and, overall, dangerous to Quebec's identity and cultural survivability. It is important to stress that, while Quebecois society has always been critical of and reluctant about the Americanization of Quebec, Americanity was recognized even though its acceptance ge nerated a fierce and lengthy debate through modern Quebec history. This particular characteristic of Quebec's culture puts it in a different cultural space than the rest of Canada, which tries to build an identity to resist American cultural influence. Contrary to Anglo-Canadian culture, which tries to insulate itself from its Americanity, Quebecois society, especially since the 1950s, has accepted, integrated and, in many ways, bypassed this question, which continues to haunt Anglo-Canadian society and its elites. A creative political tension has always prevailed in Quebec concerning this particular aspect of its reality. This tension stems from the dialogue between the forces that fought in order to bring Quebecois culture to accept the American component of its identity, and those who insisted on keeping Quebec outside of the continental cultural sphere. I also wish to underline that the topic of Quebecois culture's particular rapport with American culture remains at worst an unknown dimension (especially for a non-Quebecois public), and at best immersed in and/or subordinated to the topic of Quebec's politics. It also seems that the only time Quebecois culture draws the attention of the international (that is, non-Francophone) media is when the question of Quebec's possible separation from Canada comes to the forefront, as it did most recently with the October 1995 Referendum on independence. Discussing Quebecois culture implies, therefore, the acknowledgment and the necessity of moving beyond this political determinism, which renders peripheral other important aspects of its social reality. And although it is very hard to transcend the political question, which has mobilized the passions, not only of Quebec's population, but also of the rest of Canada, the imperative to understand Quebec society's totality remains an important task. This importance stems from the fact that most of the partisan political arguments concerning Qubecois distinctiveness as a society are based on the belief that Quebecois culture is different from the culture that prevails in the rest of Canada. …

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