"Maine elected its first openly French-American congressman, Michael H. Michaud, in 2002.
People of French descent poured into Maine and other New England states from Canada beginning in the 1870's and became the backbone of textile mills and shoe factories. But resistance developed, and people began stereotyping the newcomers as rednecks, dolts or inadequate patriots. In 1919, Maine passed a law requiring schools to teach in English.
French-Americans had a saying: "Qui perd sa langue, perd sa foi" ("Who loses his language, loses his faith"
. But many assimilated or limited their children's exposure to French to avoid discrimination or because of a now-outmoded belief that erasing French would make learning English easier.
"There was just a stigma that maybe you weren't as bright as anybody else, that you didn't speak English as well," said Linda Wagner, 53, of Lewiston, who takes classes to reclaim language lost as a child.
Suzanne Bourassa Woodward, 46, of South Portland, who recently joined a conversation group and enrolled her 10-year-old daughter in French classes, said "my French went underground" in fourth grade because "I was ridiculed, the dumb Frenchman jokes came out."
"After that," she said, "my parents would always speak to me in French, but I always responded in English."
As recently as the early 1990's, a character named Frenchie, who caricatured French-Americans, was a fixture on a Maine radio show until protests drove him off the air.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/us/04french.html?pagewanted=print&_r=0
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The phrase "first openly French-American congressman" in 2002 says it all. Good lord.
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