Lately thinking about all
things problematic going on in Québec, maybe it might be too petty to pick on
the allophones. But then I run into one or two of them throughout the day and
I’m reminded how silly the whole thing is and feel compelled to have my say.
Ever since I came to Montréal, I had been surrounded by a species of people who
only seem to exist in Québec—I am talking about the allophone! Now, if you’re
not from Québec, you may be wondering what in the world is an allophone? Short
answer is this: an allophone is a person in Québec whose mother tongue is neither
French nor English.
Here’s the way I see
it.
Having always disliked the
politically correct term allophone, as it doesn’t do much besides distort the
Montréal’s linguistic statistics, I suppose that you’ve got to say something
for addressing the phenomenon of anglophones who are the children or
grandchildren of Italian or Greek immigrants running around claiming to be
allophones. These allophone shenanigans especially come up when you ask them
why they don’t know anything about Québec, despite having spent their whole
lives here. What's more, on the statistics side of things, certain allophone
groups can be considered, for all intents and purposes, francophone or
anglophone.
Think of people from the
Maghreb, Haiti, or even the Vietnamese from a few decades ago—these people
function in French in Québec. As far as I am concerned, they are francophone.
On the other hand, you got these “allophones” from India, Pakistan, Nepal or Jamaica
who function in English in Québec—and usually only in English. For all
practical and every day purposes, they are anglophones. But they get counted as
the elusive “allophone” in statistical counts. I wish these people would just
own their anglophone-ness and stop referring to themselves as allophones.
It has been my experience
that many of the faux-allo anglos, when spoken to in French, will freak out and tell you that they pay their taxes and therefore don’t need to
be integrated or whatever. They will tell you to not patronize their businesses
if you have the audacity to speak in French, all the while claiming to be
speakers of some other language. They do this thinking they will be forgiven
for acting like the historic Québec anglophone stereotype. Perhaps from a
strict libertarian point of view, one could justify such assholery. But I, for
one, would like to see Montréal keep its uniqueness as a francophone city.
Furthermore, it’s really just common courtesy and only normal to speak French.
Most of them are ill informed and will repeat the old “Canada is bilingual”
line. Doesn’t matter what the laws really are, they will continue spouting that
excuse for their own laziness, lack of interest and closure to the world. The
worst part is that many francophone Quebecers have internalized this way of
doing things and just let it keep happening.
Then there are those
faux-allophones who were “born and raised in Montréal,” (they just love saying
the “born and raised” bit) with real immigrant family members from a generation
or three ago. I usually find myself coming back to the faux Greeks and
Italians. Montréal is full of them. I used to know a guy named Mike, who
claimed to be Italian. He didn’t speak Italian. He had never been to Italy. He
did speak French as a second language though, with English as his first. So
that being said, what makes this dude an Italian? With that logical output, I
could claim to be a Quebecer-Norwegian, since my mother’s ancestors were
something around 80% from Québec. However, I am always referred to as American.
But anglophone Mike from Montréal, he’s an Italian, as illustrated by one of
his silly friends on the street who referred to Mike as “that Italian guy!”
WTF? Similar stories abound in offices that I used to work at where this other
anglophone girl was referred to as that Greek girl.
When I bring all this up to
them, they usually come back to me with some sob story about how they or their
parents were refused access to French schools and how the Québec people were
mean to them or something like that. They act like the pre-loi 101 reality of
1968, when 40% of Montreal’s Saint-Léonard were Italian immigrants, most of
whom sent their children to English school, had nothing to do with it. Some say
the French schools refused the Italian immigrants, but I find that suspicious
when everybody knows that the vast majority of immigrants wanted the English
schools, not the French ones, as was typical of immigrants of the time.
They act like there was never
any good reason for the existence of the Mouvement pour l'intégration scolaire. They ignore that the Italian reaction to
francization was by opening clandestine English-language schools schools in
private homes that lacked basic supplies (although Montréal anglophone networks
were providing some financial assistance). People in crass coffee shops on rue
Jean-Talon near métro Fabre will tell you stories about how much they wanted to
go to French school, but the mean francophones wouldn’t let them and the
civilized Protestant (English) school board would. Anyway, none of that matters
anymore. When the faux-Italians and faux-Greeks don’t speak French or don’t
want to, they just use their “I’m Italian” or “I’m Greek” to justify their
worldview of Québec indifference. After all, like that crazy dépanneur dude
from India said in the link above: they pay their taxes, so shut the eff up and
spend your money elsewhere!
The most annoying thing is
when they use it as an excuse for not knowing how to speak French, despite many
years and decades of living in Québec. Once, I was at one of those Chinese
restaurants on rue de la Gauchetière in Montréal and, while paying for the
meal, the woman at the register spoke to me in English. I responded in French.
She responded in some Asian language. I then asked her in French if she spoke
French. She retorts by asking me if I speak Mandarin. (WTF?) I told her that we
are in Québec, not China, so why the hell should I speak Mandarin Chinese?
Eventually, she ended up serving me in French. Aha! The old bag did speak some
French after all. Lady, why didn’t you just do it from the get go? Maybe the
stereotype that some people in Asia think that all European languages are the
same is true in her case? But it does go both ways. I once asked some silly guy
in Minnesota what language his asinine oriental-language-character tattoo was
and he told me it was “Asian.” Then he got upset when I told him there is no
language called “Asian.”
It’s weird, because in the
grand scheme of things, these “allophone” people end up being not much of
anything, blended as they are in the Canadian/North American multicultural
feces-brown blob. They don’t want to be Quebecers and keep saying they are from
this or that nationality—even when they are not. No real Italian would consider
Mike a fellow countryman. They might say that they are “Canadian” in some
way—whatever that means. When I lived in Minnesota and met Canadians, I asked
them how they distinguished themselves from their USA counterparts. They
usually repeated the tired old socialized healthcare bit. And they can’t even use
that one anymore, cos those lucky Americans have now got the likes of
Obamacare!
Anyway, the allo-anglo
situation isn’t getting any better in Montréal’s climate of anglophones telling
stories about how awful they got it in Québec. Sometimes the STM tortures them.
Sometimes their brethren from other provinces chime in. Could you imagine the reaction in the
anglo media if a francophone talked like that guy?
Now before all the
anglophones send me a bunch of negative comments, talking about their rights
and blah blah blah, take note that I am merely pointing out that all you fake
allophones should just fess up, stop calling yourselves allophone and say what
you really are—an anglophone, none too different from any other, usually
oblivious to Québec and all that goes with it, while using the language of your
ancestors to justify your mediocrity.
To end on a positive note,
there are some anglophones in Canada starting to wake up and recognize
that Québec was right all along regarding language, identity and society.
Let’s hope more of the
“allophones” will take heed.
