Editor’s note: This commentary is by David Massell, the director of the Canadian Studies Program, and Richard Watts, the director of the Center for Research on Vermont, at the University of Vermont. On March 20, they host a conference to examine the historical, cultural and economic contributions of French Canadians to New England. Information can be found at French Connections/franconnexions or at http://www.uvm.edu/~crvt/.
They came to New England by the thousands, in cold weather and hot. Mostly poor, not speaking the language, often relegated to the hardest work, they were treated as second-class citizens.
A Vermont scholar described them as “an abominable crew of vagabonds, robust, lazy men and boys, slatternly women with litters of filthy brats. … The character of these people is not such to as to inspire the highest hope for the future of Vermont if they should become the most numerous of its population.”
“Is our good old fashioned New England,” another citizen asked, “to pass into a middle age of mediocre brain and body; are we to become so foreignized that our [Puritan] virtues and culture are to become extinct?”
Discriminated against because of their religion, their surnames, and their resistance to assimilation, these immigrants faced a difficult life. Fleeing rural poverty at home, they discovered urban poverty and ghettoization in the new land.
Yet they provided the hands that tended the looms and churned the butter and toppled the giant fir trees. They started new businesses and farms, brought music and laughter and vitality to a place badly in need new life and experiencing population decline.
They were French Canadians. And today most of us are proud to claim that part of our identity.
Nearly 900,000 migrated to New England between 1840 and 1930, with Burlington, Winooski and the Champlain Valley being the original gateway to the region.
Twenty-first century Vermont, like Vermont of a century ago, is witnessing population shrinkage, immigration from beyond our borders, and some unfortunate examples of xenophobia.
Nearly one in four Vermonters trace their ancestry to Quebec, and our phone books remain sprinkled with surnames that span the alphabet: Allaire, Gagnon, Marcotte, Richard, Tremblay and Vasseur. The “Bs” are rich with Bergeron, Blanchard, Boucher, Boudreau and Brault.
The influence of this influx was profound, not only on the economy, but in the arts and in politics. Vermont notables include Peter Clavelle, Tony Pomerleau and Marcelle Pomerleau Leahy. Beyond Vermont, writer Jack Kerouac came out of Lowell, Massachusetts, and actor Robert Goulet from Lawrence. Kelly Ayotte is a New Hampshire senator. Maine’s governor is Paul LePage.
In the events of the present, we can hear echoes of the past.
Once again, Vermont’s population is stagnating or on the decline. Due to outmigration, an aging population and a low birth rate, over two-thirds of the our cities and towns now have fewer residents than in 2010, including Rutland whose numbers have declined since 2000.
Once again, we are witnessing the arrival of New Americans, now from Central and South America, Africa and the Middle East.
And once again, these new arrivals are creating anxiety in our midst. Such fears range from the benign – fear of lost jobs and tax revenues – to the more caustic and hurtful. Rutland’s online petition to oppose plans to bring in 100 Syrian refugees links the newcomers to 9/11: they are “the same people who hate us.” Among the cruel posts on the Facebook page Rutland First: “They are not people they are animals.”
Twenty-first century Vermont, like Vermont of a century ago, is witnessing population shrinkage, immigration from beyond our borders, and some unfortunate examples of xenophobia.
Let’s pause and remember that “vagabonds” became governors, and immigrants became Americans. We are a state – and a nation – of immigrants. And we are richer for it.
