Preserving the Quebecois Culture

“Je me souviens”, which when translated to English means, “I remember,” is the provincial motto of Quebec (Eller 1999, 27). The culture of any society is comprised of many factors including the struggles and hardships previous generations prevailed (Valentine 2001). As pointed out by Jack David Eller, author of From Culture to Ethnicity to Conflict, what Quebec remembers is “a history of injustices and ‘humiliations’ that have been likened to slavery or colonialism and which have led one activist to describe the Quebecois as the ‘white niggers of America’” (1999, 27). For this reason, the francophones of Quebec, self-identified as Quebecois, began to feel the need to protect and preserve their culture (Eller 1999, 312). Consequently, over the years, they have assembled to defend and in some cases even invent their own distinctive culture to separate themselves from the rest of Canada which leads Eller to state that “the ethnically conscious of Quebec hold up their history and their culture (or, better yet, the history of slights and assaults, yet survival, of their culture) as the banner of their identity and the source of their claims for and on a state” (Eller 1999, 312, 27).

Presently, the French language is the most often referred to component of the Quebecois culture that is used to distinguish them from the Anglophone majority of Canada. However, that same component acts as a double-edged sword (Eller 1999, 315). Eller argues that while speaking French makes the Canadian francophones different from other Canadians, it also makes them synonymous to Frenchmen and other international francophones. This leads to the question posed by Eller, “Are the French Canadians, then, part of larger “French” nation, or are they a nation un...

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...nal education and institutions” (Smith 2010, 37). Quebecois have developed a vibrant culture of their own, solidly embedded in modernity, which had an evolution evidently distinct from the rest of Canada because of the Conquest, la survivance, and urbanization which historically conscious nationalists will use as the basis to continue to fight for its own state to further develop its Quebecois culture (Bellavance 2013, Salee 1994).

Works Cited

Bellavance, Guy. Quebec Cultural Policies. 16 December 2013. Web. March 2014.

Eller, Jack David. From Culture to Ethnicity to Conflict. The University of Michigan Press, 1999. Print.

Salee, Daniel. Identity Politics and Multiculturalism in Quebec. 1994. Web. March 2014.

Smith, Anthony D. Nationalism. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010. Print.

Valentine, Harry. The Evolving Culture of Quebec. 15 September 2001. Web. March 2014.