French American
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A French American or Franco-American is a citizen of the United States of America of French descent and heritage. About 13 million U.S. residents are of French descent, and about 1.6 million of them speak the French language at home. An additional 400,000 speak a French Creole language, according to the 2000 U.S. Census
The first French Americans to arrive were the Huguenots fleeing religious persecution who settled throughout the Thirteen Colonies. The majority of present day Franco-Americans are not descended from direct immigrants from France, but rather from those who settled French territories in the New World (primarily in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) before moving to the United States or being incorporated into American territories later on.
While Americans of French descent make up a substantial percentage of the American population, French-Americans arguably are less visible than other similarly sized ethnic groups. This is due in part to the high degree of assimilation among Huguenot Protestant settlers, as well as the tendency of French-American groups to identify more strongly with "New World" identities such as Quebecois, French Canadian, Acadian, Cajun, or Louisiana Creole. This has inhibited the development of a wider French-American identity in the United States.
This relative absence of French-American political and social unity helps to explain anti-French sentiment in the United States. French historian Justin Vaïsse has proposed that an important cause of overtly expressed public hostility toward France in the U.S. is the small number of Americans of direct French descent.[1] While he acknowledges that this is not the direct cause of anti-French sentiments, he argues that it explains why these sentiments can be expressed publicly, without being seen as a gross violation of political correctness. Vaïsse contends that by comparison, the public display of such sentiments towards other ethnic groups or nationalities would be met by strong disapproval. He proposes that as France has no powerful and organised lobby to defend it, it is socially and politically acceptable in the United States to express negative sentiments of the French.[2]
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[edit] French-American Population
While found throughout the country, they are most numerous in New England, Louisiana (where more than 35% of the population of the Cajun Country reported in the last census that French was spoken at home) and Michigan. French Louisiana, when it was sold by Napoleon in 1803, covered all of part of than fifteen current U.S. states and contained French colonists dispersed across it, though they were most numerous in its southernmost portion.
Often, Franco-Americans are identified more specifically as being of French Canadian, Cajun, or Louisiana Creole descent. An important part of Franco-American history is the Quebec diaspora of the 1840s-1930s, in which one million French Canadians moved to the United States, principally to the New England states and Michigan. Historically, the French in Canada had very high birth rates, which is why their population was large even though immigration from France was relatively low. They also moved to different regions within Canada, namely Ontario and Manitoba. Many of the early male migrants worked in the lumber industry in both regions, and, to lesser degree, in the burgeoning mining industry in the upper Great Lakes.
Another significant source of immigrants was Saint Domingue, which gained its independence as the Republic of Haiti in 1804 following a bloody revolution; much of its white population (along with some mulattoes) fled during this time, often to Louisiana, where they largely assimilated into the Creole culture.
The Cajuns of Louisiana have a unique heritage. Their ancestors settled Acadia, in what is now the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island, in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. In 1755, after capturing Fort Beauséjour in the region, the British army forced the Acadians to either swear an oath of loyalty to the British crown or face expulsion. Thousands refused to take the oath, causing them to be sent, penniless, to the 13 colonies to the south in what has become known as the Great Upheaval. Over the next generation, some four thousand managed to make the long trek to Lousiana, where they began a new life. The name Cajun is a corruption of the word Acadian. Many still live in what is known as the Cajun Country, where much of their colonial culture survives.
Because the ancestors of most French Americans had for the most part left France before the French Revolution, they usually identify more with the Fleur-de-lis of monarchical France than with the modern French tricolor.
[edit] French American communities
According to the U.S. Census Bureau of 2000, French-Americans (of French and French-Canadian ancestry) made up close to, or more than, 10% of the population of:
| New Hampshire | 25.2% |
| Vermont | 23.3% |
| Maine | 22.8% |
| Rhode Island | 17.2% |
| Louisiana | 16.2% |
| Massachusetts | 12.9% |
| Connecticut | 9.9% |
In states that once made up part of New France (excluding Louisiana):
| Michigan | 6.8% |
| Montana | 5.3% |
| Minnesota | 5.3% |
| Wisconsin | 5.0% |
| North Dakota | 4.7% |
| Wyoming | 4.2% |
| Nevada | 3.9% |
| Missouri | 3.8% |
| Kansas | 3.6% |
French-Americans also made up more than 4% of the population in
| Washington | 4.6% |
| Oregon | 4.6% |
| Alaska | 4.2% |
National percentage of Americans of French & French-Canadian ancestry: 5.3%
- States with the largest French communities include (according to the 2000 U.S. Census)
French and French-Canadian
| 1. | California | 927,453 |
| 2. | Massachusetts | 818,388 |
| 3. | Michigan | 680,939 |
| 4. | Louisiana | 680,208 |
| 5. | New York | 628,810 |
State capitals with French names include Baton Rouge (Lousiana); Boise (Idaho); Des Moines (Iowa); Juneau (Alaska); and Montpelier (Vermont).
[edit] Religion
French Americans are divided between those of Roman Catholic heritage (which includes most French Canadians and Cajuns) and those of Huguenot (Protestant) background, most of whom came during the colonial period. For most of its existence, New France was open only to Catholic settlement. In response, many Huguenots – who sought to emigrate as they faced religious discrimination in France – moved instead to other countries (mainly England, the Netherlands and Prussia) and their overseas territories, including the 13 colonies of Great Britain and the Dutch Cape Colony. Huguenots tended to assimilate more quickly into English-speaking society than their Catholic counterparts. One-third of all American Presidents have some proven Huguenot ancestry, along with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay.
[edit] French language in the United States
According to the National Education Bureau, French is the second most commonly taught foreign language in U.S. high schools, colleges and universities behind Spanish. French was the most commonly taught foreign language until the 1980s, when the influx of Hispanic immigrants aided the growth of Spanish. According to the U.S. 2000 Census, French is the fourth most spoken language in the United States after English, Spanish and Chinese with over 1.6 million speakers. In addition to parts of Louisiana, the language is also commonly spoken in Miami, northern Maine, Vermont and New York City, home to large French-speaking communities from France, Canada, as well as the Caribbean.
As a result of French immigration to what is now the United States in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the French language was once widely spoken in much of the country, especially in the former Louisiana Territory, as well as in the Northeast. French-language newspapers existed in many American cities, especially New Orleans. Americans of French descent often lived in French-dominated neighborhoods, where they attended schools and churches that used their language. In New England, Upstate New York and the Midwest, French-Canadian neighborhoods were known as "Little Canadas".
1. http://www.politiqueinternationale.com/revue/article.php?id_revue=12&id=228&content=synopsis
2.Pierre Verdaguer, "A Turn-of-the-Century Honeymoon? The Washington Post's Coverage of France", French Politics, Culture & Society, vol. 21, no. 2, summer 2003.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Franco American Center
- Franco American Women's Institute
- Institut français
- French Catholics in the United States - article in the Catholic Encyclopedia.
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