It’s an English-speaking World Out There – The Quiz!

with 360 comments

Vodpod videos no longer available.

$FaceBook : It\'s an English-speaking world - The Quiz! : http://wp.me/pa15u-BS$ $Google Bookmark : It\'s an English-speaking world - The Quiz! : http://wp.me/pa15u-BS$ $Twitter : It\'s an English-speaking world - The Quiz! : http://wp.me/pa15u-BS$ SOMEONE ON THE INTERNET NEEDS TO KNOW

Written by angryfrenchguy

April 19, 2010 at 1:00 am

Posted in AngryFrenchGuy Speaks!

360 Responses

Subscribe to comments with RSS.

Anonymous no. x said:
“And this statement (“immigrants are ignorant”) is exactly the separatist contempt for the “ethnics” that Tancrede tried to project on me yesterday.”

No. Again it reflect your contempt, or at least a certain ignorance of the reality of immigration. An immigrant coming in Canada think he is coming in a bilingual country, because it says so on the brochure. But he is really coming to two countries, one english, the other french but were the english have still a lot of power. Nobody ever talked to him about independence, because the PQ or BQ do not write the federal immigration infos (and now, not even the provincial ones if they exists).

People often talk about “Canada” as if Quebec wasn’t part of it, like in “Canadians came in Montreal in 1995”. My guess is that it reflect a reality, not just a mistaken way of speaking. And contrarily to the “Québécois vs Immigrants” distinction, this way of speaking is not withering, but more and more entrenched.

“And it’s interesting that the same names always pop up. If it’s not Maria Mourani, it’s Joseph Facal. If it’s not Facal, it’s Osvaldo Nunez. If it’s not Nunez, it’s Pierre Curzi. The pool is very small.”

But add to them a good number of their constituent. These people are often elected (as Khadir or Wawanoloath) in places were the “pure laine” are not an overwhelming majority. About the third of Abitibi-Temiscamingue is Abenaki:

Click to access resume-premieresnations.pdf

“For the life of me, I cannot find a link.”
Again, from La Presse, federalist newspaper:
http://archives.vigile.net/pol/vote/pratteminethn.html

Tancrède

April 27, 2010 at 12:36 pm
“For the life of me” was from Acajack, but Anonymous was the one requesting a link.

Tancrède

April 27, 2010 at 12:39 pm
“What’s also interesting is that one minute you may be talking about how the “ethniques” are embracing your cause, but the next minute you are talking about stepping up the educational provisions (down to preschool and up to cegep and even university) and other provisions of bill 101 – because the present ones are not enough in molding the “ethniques” into neo-Quebecois 1.0 prototypes.”

When did I ask to extend Bill 101 to daycares and CEGEPs?

I am not even a PQ voter!

Acajack

April 27, 2010 at 12:57 pm
@Tancrède,

Mais voyons! Je ne t’ai pas du tout attacqué ni en discutant la situation des médecins du système McGill, ni en partageant avec tous mes expériences personelles dans la vie! Je n’ai aucune envie de me cacher.

Oui, monsieur, (La guèrre yes sir, c’est seulement pour faire un rime. Mes excuses à Roch Carrier) Oui, j’ai lu le poème “l’homme rapaillé” de Gaston Miron, et je comprends les références dont tu m’a rappellé ici. Merci!

Le poème est beau mais la séparation est laide.

La société canadienne et québécoise, les deux ont énormément changé depuis l’ecriture de Gaston Miron. Les indépendantistes semblent être enfoncés firmément dans le passé.

J’ai empathie pour les souffrances pyschologiques des gens indépendantistes, mais l’autre moitié des québécois souffraient autant que vous avez souffert à l’esprit si la séparation remportait. Parmi vous, p-être les gens préféreraient devenir plus prôches aux américains, au lieu de la xénophobie apparente des séparatists envers “nous autres” canadiens qui parle anglais partout au Canada avec nos écoles d’immersion française qui ne seraient jamais possible aux États.-Unis.

Et si le Canada sera divisé à l’avenir pourquoi ne pas les échanger pour écoles d’immersion espagnoles et mandarins, ces cultures ouvertes envers nous, les autres canadiens?

Désolé d’être si tellement d’accord avec la pensée de Anonymous, Michel, noyb, Fon, Vinster et autres d’ici qui ne favorisent pas la séparation.

Je ne veux pas me fouiller dans les statisques perpértuelles pour un épreuve irréfutable qu’un étroite majorité des québécois, dans une petite instant en temps, après une autre pépin canadienne, bien sûr, veut s’en foutre pour toujours de nous leurs concitoyens. Des statisiques peuvent faire l’épreuve de tout et de rien.

C’est le coeur humain qui compte.

Je n’ai pas de colère ou de méprise envert toi.

Aies donc, une belle journée, Tancrède! À la prochaine fois.

bruce

April 27, 2010 at 1:09 pm
@Tancrède — (in anglo-speak-white this time around!)

My apologies. The poem is that of Michèle Lalonde, recited at the first Nuit Blanche in Montréal in May 1970.

The poem is a powerful one, and some similarity to L’homme rapaillé de Gaston Miron, which at first glance I confused the extracts, and realised on reading your extracts again, that this was Speak White, to which Marco Micone made rhetorical reference in his Speak What? written about 20 years later. (about franchophone exploitation of the new immigrants) Whether he is separatist or no at present, you can see he was going through an intellectual struggle in respect to what the new immigrants to Quebec had to give up of their own culture and language.

Society really does change a lot every generation!

bruce

April 27, 2010 at 1:54 pm
“And it’s interesting that the same names always pop up. If it’s not Maria Mourani, it’s Joseph Facal. If it’s not Facal, it’s Osvaldo Nunez. If it’s not Nunez, it’s Pierre Curzi. The pool is very small.”

Whereas the pool of (those whom are considered “ethnics” in your very racialized world view) on the Crusade for Canada are…

Well you’ve got, euh… we’ll give you Yolande James, Pablo Rodriguez, Marla Jennings, Emmanuel Dubourg and… a truck load of old white English-speaking men with italian and eastern European names.

Not quite the United Nations.

The reality is that, in Québec we have Francophones who are split on the issue of independence (with a small margin in favour of the status quo), Anglophones who vote in Stalinian proportions for the only true Fatherland (any discussion on the issue is usually considered treason) and a relatively small group of FIRST GENERATION immigrants who vote with the Anglos.

The idea that Anglos and so-called Allos formed a single group of voters was (maybe) true from the 3rd of September 1969, when Anglos sided with Italian immigrants on the issue of English schools to very precisely the 21st of December 1988, the day that four Anglo members of Robert Bourassa’s cabinet resigned over changes to Québec’s language law, while John Ciaccia and Christos Sirros, the two “Allo” representatives decided the law was acceptable as it was.

angryfrenchguy

April 27, 2010 at 2:52 pm
Une autre mélange existentiel:

Something else, I need to say in English, Tancrède, because you persist in projecting upon anglo speaking Canadians in general and upon myself in particular that we deeply do not see Québec or Montreal as Canadian. Despite having written in French that I came with my children from Canada to Montreal in 1995 to support the continuation of Quebec as part of Canada, you have seized upon this fragment as meaning I didn’t really see Montreal etc. as part of Canada.

I did clarify to you in French that the meaning was that we came from all parts of the rest of Canada to that part of Canada that was in the midst of a campaign to separate, October 30th 1995 referendum day. So yes we came (from the rest of) Canada on October 27th to bring a message of belonging and solidarity to those Quebecers who were encouraged to still remain with us as proud and confident Canadians in this wonderful “administrative arrangement” as you call it.

For you it is not wonderful at all. It is “becoming a bad country” apparently according to you it used to be a “good” country despite the Speak White poem that summed up in 1970 the very real experiences of the previous 207 years in French English relations from the perspective of the most exploited levels of Quebec citizenry.

But hey, all these people like Lalonde and Micone have well paid sinecures these days in the universities, and are rock stars in their own rights.

I am pretty sure that I explained the intention of what I was saying to you in French in a subsequent post. And indeed I would never have come to Montreal in 1995 in the first place were I not deeply attached to Quebec, and definitely as a most important part of my Canada.

I’m well aware that you have little or no affective attachment to Canada, but this insistence of yours as to my mental attitude does not do you great honour! To perseverate in insisting that some poorly written fragment from me in my newly acquired second, and much loved language, indicates a typical anglo sense of alienation and detachment, a sense of separation from the notion of Quebec as a Canadien place, part of a larger collectivity to which we all belong, and from which we derive not only rights and freedoms but also responsibilites.

There is among the most avid independantists an almost visceral disdain for all things Canadian. Under the guise of a lot of (pseudo) intellectual rigour, there are endness “proofs” and statisques produced why Canada is a toxic albatross weighing down the aspirations of Québecers, and yes the other “misguided” majority comprising anglos, allos and perhaps only 40% of old stock francos are after all Québécois also — well maybe but just “misguided”

There isn’t a lot of intellectual rigour in all of this, I need to re-affirm! 50% of your new allo immigrants leave in 5 to 10 years for whatever reasons, probably lack of economic opportunity for one, and for lack educational opportunities for another and perhaps just for dearth of warmth and welcome and friendship — easier to find I am sure if one joins up with the PQ. Same as in China — there are big perks if you get into the big political organisation there.

Anyhow statistics quoted are seldom in service of any great and noble truth, and usually in the service of personal or ideological goals.

Albertans can see a lot of their petro dollars leaving the province. Yet according to independantistes, they don’t see them — there is a net exodus of Quebec dollars! Which set of statistics can we trust. Perhaps it is we in Ontario that are scooping up the wealth of the west, despite our present nearly 20 billion deficit this year alone.

Anyhow all the statistics in the world hardly matter a pinch of shit when there is a deficit of good will. But it is not the “misguided” 50 % plus 25,000 that are lacking in good will. So far we still have an incentive to study French and read Québécois littérature, even stuff written by separatists for that matter! Insight into history and historical wrongs is important in building TOGETHER a better future Canada, even easier when the pendulum eventually swings, as it will against the Harper government. Sure I’m perfectly OK with the BQ getting rid of all the Harper ridings in Quebec, IF we can believe Tancrède that that will happen, cross my fingers I hope you are right on this much at least.

On the other hand Johnny is right in observing that institutions of the state became way too bloated and expensive, and that individual citizens should take up the challenge to do more for them selves. Deficits can not pile up for ever on your and our children’s shoulders. Shades of the “Invasions Barbares” de Denys Arcand! User fees as a form of co-payment for health services in proportion to the ability to pay. The nerve of that Charest government! There was a furore when Québec daycare went from 5$ per day to 7$ and then to 10$. Sheesh! And I paid at least $25 a day TWENTY YEARS AGO in Ontario when my kids needed to benefit from it. And it was money well spent. A sliding scale would allow some flexibility and justice.

Why did Quebecers turn away from PQ government a few years back, perhaps a growing realisation of the simple fact that government cannot pay for everything for everyone, and that personal initiative does count for a lot in ones future personal prospects. Everything in the 80’s was about what the state could do for you. Nowadays we need to be more productive and pay some extra tax, — sorry Johnny!- so the state can get a bit out of the hole that the politicians dug for all of us, creating inefficient if politically too correct institutional bureaucracies.

If Québec could support all of that and lower taxes at the same time, well that is akin to having oil wells all over the place in addition to hydro dams. Alberta has the wells all right. Québec has the dams. That’s a bit of all right for each rather navel gazing jurisdiction, and what jurisidiction is not to some degree.

Ontarians are also struggling these days, so we don’t have time to agonise over whether Québécois are agonising over why we in Ontario or B.C. aren’t consuming more of their distinctive culture, and their vedettes and all, so sought after in Poland and Australia, to read the blogues.

Now we hear wails of anguish that provinces with population growing briskly are getting more federal seats, while Quebec is staying at 75 and PEI at 4. Well grow some more people Québec! Maybe let a lot more Haïtiens come over, I don’t know a whole lot of other ways to augment the old stock core. WASP and WIRC stocks are not growing in ROC either. We are letting ourselves be assimilated by immigration, who are disposed to stay. Hey multicultural society ain’t that bad over here now that our ancestors with their stiff British upper lips or their Irish smilin’ eyes have kind of melted away into fairly far off history.

If Québécers chose to LOVE Canada in their virtual entirety they would be amazed at the amount of extra love they would get back.

Also we have every language heard most places, certainly the urban ones. Oh, and that does include Montréal, Tancrède, an incredible CANADIAN and incredibly FRENCH multicultural city. What’s not to like. The Féderale, which you guys of the 49+% (which is actually usually a bit less than that in reality, if the questions are honest) the fed which you love to loathe, wants us to come to Quebec and wants us to speak French. Works best in Chicoutimi where you guys also want to speak to us in French. Better than in Montreal where only some want to encourage our French!

You know there is a pretty fine Canadian Lit. out there, which I purposely neglect, since I only have enough time for French Lit. a big chunk of which is Québec Litt.

You guys just don’t know how to sell yourselves, (in the positive sense) here in ROC, but the big question is how the fascinating old USA is going to BUY you up in the literal sense in the future if you don’t watch out. Fortunately for Québec for the time being they are besieged with domestic woes and the loss of freedoms and the clash of Tea Party and ultra-right Christian lunacy with the “50% + 25,000” metaphorically speaking that value diversity and tolerance.

Note @ ACAJACK “who doesn’t even vote for PQ” Despite your deep cynicism, you are an incredible guy whom I do admire. I don’t have the time and freedom to analyse the whole world as accurately as you do, but I am more emotionally engaged, I tend to think. Reason and good will combined are to be pursued.

Note to ANONYMOUS: What a stud!

By the way, what is a “QUCKIE”, in one of your recent posts?

Is it something fast and deeply erotic that can only happen in Quebec. Since we anglo-speak-white-ers du ROC have no real culture, we’re both a little jealous, and also would like to know your definition, either in English or French will do, sir! Merci.

Oh, and thanks for the Sugar Sammy link. I watched them all, including the French ones. Totally off the wall hilarious.

(AFG thinks he doesn’t have the integrity to get his facts straight. How can I remain straight-faced in the light of that bit of AFG comédie! I never knew our bloque host was quite so straight-laced. Voyons, AFG! Lighten up! Sammy made my night — and here is a Québécois who is making a big splash in anglo north america — a truly Québécois metrosexual kind of vedette extraordinaire. A child of Bill 101. YOU GO BILL 101 — YOU ROCK! On the other hand….

The allos are going to find a way, anyhow to speak white, along with la belle langue. That may include going to school down the 401 or maybe down the 87 South. But it is not great when the best and brightest choose to say au revoir.

I want to return soon to posting in French as much as possible, otherwise there is not much point in me being here, but sometimes I need to complain in English, if for example my unconscious sentiments perhaps poorly expressed in French are doggedly insisted upon as prima facie evidence for something that they are NOT. The biggest scandal about this blog is that all kinds of nasty arrogance and contemptuousness is routinely projected upon us fellow Canadians. ABP — Ta gueule! Well I don’t mean to knock you, but you are bad that way for withdrawing offers of free beer. Shame again!

Hey Midnight Jack where are you — working on your French accents– as usual? Ne t’inquiete-toi pas! Mes propres fautes sont monstrueuses par comparaison.

@Edward –

“Pourrais-tu gUarder…de tes propres affaires. etc. (your tease back to me and it was something wrong where I said “or” in French instead of “where”. Subtle eh? We have bad French “u” ‘s in common then, n’est pas?

@AFG Where the hell is the next heavily booby trapped thread? On s’y attend déjà depuis plusieurs jours.

Would you kindly just get on with it dude – this thread is getting long in the tooth Merci et bon courage!

Hi to you also littlerob. Good to know you live and breathe.

Get a Gecko Geck or get repeck! in other words,learn yourself some French, boy!

Eh bin!

New Guelph Academy of AFG blogue awards:

Bruit de tambours:

Les gagantes sont ANONYMOUS, y compris aussi Acajack, Michel encore une fois et mention honourable à Tancrède pour perseverance tant incroyable que je ne sais quoi d’autre.

Bravo à tous. Bravissimi!

ON A RAISON À DIRE “NON”À LA SÉPARATION!

bruce

April 27, 2010 at 4:07 pm
PUBLIC APOLOGY TO MIDNIGHT JACK:

Cher Jacques, Frère Jacques! Je n’aurais jamais dû me moquer de tes accents manquants! Voyons! Regarde-toi de ma punctuation manquant en anglais y inclus les marques intérrogatives ?? Les fautes du genre français et les constructions gauches! Parbleu! Crisse!

Je voudrais demander grâce de toi!

Que je suis une telle bête écervellée écoeurante! Je te dois *beaucoup* comme a dit Acajack!

Une bière gratuit, je crois, et jamais jamais jamais je n’irais jamais l’arracher de toi, je te promets, la main à la coeur, je ne te traiterais jamais comme ce type primitif et dégoûtant,ce personnage mésquin, sortie en direct del comédia de l’arte, comme ABP par exemple, ce poltron dit “anglo inculte et barbare sans pareil”. Aieee! Quelle honte, quel déshonneur pour la Saskatchewan! Aieee! — encore une fois. Choeur grèc: Aieee! Aieee, hélas, hélas, c’était le facteur “ABP” !!

Excuse-moi, mon brave homme, je te supplie à ou aux genoux ou même a quatre pattes!

Au futur je vais discuter seulement tes arguments s’ils sont faibles, mais jamais,jamais, jamais j’irais jamais critiquer ton stylistique tant distinct qu’il est. Oui, c’est tout ça, ton style hypercontemporain! Un homme post moderne, c’est toi! On s’en foute de l’Académie française et tous les régles des accents si ennuyants!

Je te remercie en avant de ta sagesse en m’octroyant tant de ton clémence. Grâce aux dieux, quiconques, pour que tu as pitié de moi, qui ne mérite aucune.

Désolé que je t’avais si cruellemnt taquiné.

Veuillez accepter, monsieur, mes salutations (sentiments etc.) les plus distinguéés.

Avec amitié, comme toujours, je te fais toutes mes révérances.

Bruce, ton si très humble et fidèle serviteur.

bruce

April 27, 2010 at 5:13 pm
@Bruce: “For you it is not wonderful at all. It is “becoming a bad country” apparently according to you it used to be a “good” country despite the Speak White poem that summed up in 1970 the very real experiences of the previous 207 years in French English relations from the perspective of the most exploited levels of Quebec citizenry.”

I have very little problem with what Trudeau or Chretien did when it doesn’t come to the question of Quebec independence or autonomy within Canada. I could very well be a LPC (PLC) or a NDP voter if it could help us getting rid of the Conservatives, or if the BQ was to turn sharply to the right. The martial law was an awful bit of “democracy”, as were the fake bombs (cf. Keable commission). But that doesn’t change the fact that, if you take Quebec out of the equation (which is hard to do, I admit), the LPC was overall a pretty decent party compared to the Mulroney or Harper administrations.

When I say “bad country”, search today’s news about Bev Oda (on not funding help to abortion in poor countries) or the Miliken ruling on the refusal of the CPC to release to the Chamber the documents related to the pending case of the alledged covering of torture. That’s what’s tainting the reputation of Canada outside of its border right now.
I’m glad we are on the same wavelenght about the present federal administration and that you don’t see the BQ as the devil’s incarnation. You have to know, though, that Harper (and Ignatieff when he run against Dion) were popular in Quebec mostly because they were offering a new chance to “renewed federalism”. When this failed to concretize, people began to show less enthusiasm, even though Quebec city is still conservative (with a small c). Note that Quebec city, while 96% francophone in 1995, voted far lower than the average 60% francophone vote in favor of the Yes. These two (contextually) weird properties of conservativeness and federalism are collectively called “the mystery of Quebec”.
http://www.vigile.net/Le-referendum-de-1995-a-t-il-ete

@Bruce again: “I am pretty sure that I explained the intention of what I was saying to you in French in a subsequent post.”

I did understood. That’s why I kept you out of this post about the tendancy to speak as if Quebec wasn’t part of Canada. We do speak that way anyway, and so do you. And as Montreal being a Canadian and bilingual city, well, there’s English-Montreal, and French-Montreal, with a little geographic overlapping but almost no social overlapping.

Tancrède

April 27, 2010 at 7:30 pm
“The fact that immigrants oppose the ethnocentric ideology of Quebec’s secession from Canada proves something completely opposite”(Anonymous)

That makes no sense. Canada is a multicultural federation. A ethnocentric federation. It’s constitution OBLIGE the federal goverment to help keep all ethnic groups SEPARATED from each other.

So, there is NO single canadian nation from which the Québécois nation is separating from. It is clearly stipulated in the official canadian immigrants documentation that there is NO canadian culture. Immigrants keep their loyalty to their country of origin.

That you dont know this means that you are not a immigrant and dont even know about this federation’s constitution ! It is the sad reality of most english-canadians.

Gébé Tremblay

April 27, 2010 at 8:31 pm
“And it’s interesting that the same names always pop up. If it’s not Maria Mourani, it’s Joseph Facal. If it’s not Facal, it’s Osvaldo Nunez. If it’s not Nunez, it’s Pierre Curzi. The pool is very small.”

Pierre Curzi is a Québécois “pure laine”. I dont know why people would only consider his father’s heritage. His Québécois mother did not give him half of an heritage. He was also raised in french, in Québec, by his mother. He never learned italian from his father and was not raised in Italy.

Pierre Curzi has herited Québécois nation’s origins, history, culture, language, on Québec’s soil. He is a pure laine Québécois from his mother.

What do you suggest ? That a child raised only by one parent would inherit only half a ethnic identity ? Ridiculous !

Gébé Tremblay

April 27, 2010 at 8:45 pm
A good thing to keep in mind. And it comes from a federalist leader.

Robert Bourassa, “Gouverner le Québec”, p. 233, n.17, about “souveraineté”:

“D’après divers sondages, cet appui évolue comme suit: septembre 1990: 61% (Léger et Léger); novembre 1990: (CROP); décembre 1990: 70% (Léger et Léger).”

Tancrède

April 27, 2010 at 8:45 pm
This essay by a well-known Mexican author explores themes that are quite germane to the debate on this blog. It may not seem so but, if one substitutes the terms that describes the groups being discussed in the article, one may be able to find certain commonalities between the situation desribed by Fuentes and the situation in Canada, particularly Quebec.

Since I was raised in France, born of a French mother, and immigrated to the U.S. and adopted and raised by a Hispanic/ Latino stepfather who married my mother, I have a quite different view about language, culture and identity than most people.
I found the essay to be quite thought provoking.

Huntington and the Mask of Racism

“El Racista Enmascarada” (The Masked Racist

Huntington and the Mask of Racism

Carlos Fuentes, the Mexican novelist, is a member of NPQ’s advisory board. Translation by Thomas D. Morin, Professor of Hispanic Studies, University of Rhode Island, Kingston.

Mexico City—“The best Indian is a dead Indian.” “The best nigger is a nigger slave.” “The yellow threat.” “The red threat.” The Puritanism one finds at the base of WASP culture (White, Anglo Saxon, and Protestant) in the United States of America expresses itself, from time to time, with shocking color. Now, another of these forceful and freely expressed simplistic ideas can be added to the colorful expressions already mentioned: “The Brown Menace.”

The proponent of this idea is Professor Samuel P. Huntington, the tireless voice of alarm with respect to the menace that the idea of the “other” represents for the foundational soul of white, protestant, Anglo-Saxon United States of America. That there existed (and, still, exists) an indigenous-“America” (Huntington uses the United States as a name for the entire continent) prior to the European colonization is of no concern to him. That besides Anglo-America, there existed a prior French-“America” (Louisiana) and, even, a Russian-America (Alaska) is of no interest to Huntington. What worries him is Hispanic-America, the America of Ruben Dario, the America that speaks Spanish and believes in God. For Huntington, this brown danger is an indispensable danger for a nation that requires, in order to exist, an identifiable external menace. Moby Dick, the white whale, is a symbol of this attitude which, fortunately, not all North Americans share, including John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the North American nation, who warned his countrymen: “Let us not go out into the world in search of monsters to destroy.”

Huntington, in his Clash of Civilizations, discovers his necessary external monster (once the USSR and “the red danger” disappeared) in an Islam poised to assault the borders of Western Civilization, in an attempt to outdo the feats of Saladino, the Sultan, who captured Jerusalem in 1187. As a result, Huntington outdoes the Christian Crusade of Richard the Lion Hearted in the Holy Land. Huntington the Lion Hearted’s anti-Islamic Crusade expresses the profound racism in his heart and, in similar manner, his profound ignorance of the true kulturkampf evident in the Islamic world. Islam is not poised to invade the West. Islam is living, from Algeria to Iran, its own cultural and political battle between conservatives and Islamic liberals. It is a vertical battle, deep within, not a horizontal one of expansion.

The Mexican as exploiter | Huntington’s new crusade is directed against Mexico and the Mexicans that live, work, and enrich life in the northern nation. As far as Huntington is concerned, Mexicans do not live—they invade; they do not work—they exploit; and, they do not enrich—they impoverish, since poverty is part a Mexican’s natural condition. All of this, when taking into account the number of Mexicans and Latin Americans in the United States, constitutes a cultural threat for that which Huntington dares to mention: the Anglo-American, Protestant, and Anglo speaking white race.

Are Mexicans invading the US? No, they are simply obeying the laws of the job market. There are job offers for Mexicans because there is a North American labor need. If some day, there were to exist full employment in Mexico, the US would have to find cheap labor from another country for the jobs whites, Saxons, and Protestants—naming them as does Huntington—do not want to fill, since they have either surpassed these levels of employment, or because they have grown old, due to the fact that the economy of the US has passed from the industrial period, to the post-industrial, technological, information age.

Do Mexicans exploit the US? According to Huntington, Mexicans constitute an unjust burden for the US economy: they receive more than they give back.

All of this is false. California earmarks a billion dollars a year to educate the children of immigrants. But if it were to do otherwise—listen up, Schwarzenegger—the state would lose $16 billion a year in federal aid to education. Similarly, Mexican migrant workers pay $29 billion a year more in taxes than the services they receive.

The Mexican immigrant, far from being an impoverishing burden, as assumed by Huntington, creates wealth for all economic levels. At the most humble worker level, the expulsion of Mexican immigrants would be ruinous for the US. John Kenneth Galbraith (the kind of North American that Huntington cannot be) writes the following: “ If all the undocumented people in the US were to be expelled, the effect on the North American economy…would be nothing less than disastrous…Fruit and vegetables in Florida, Texas and California would not be harvested. The price of food products would rise to incredible levels. The Mexican people that want to come to the US are necessary, and clearly add to everyone’s well-being.” (The Nature of Mass Poverty)

On another level, the Hispanic migrant, as Gregory Rodriguez, from Pepperdine University, tells us, has the highest number of salaried individuals per family than any other ethnic group. So, too, is his level of family cohesiveness. The result is that, while the father of the family may have arrived barefoot and soaking wet, the descendents of migrants have attained income levels comparable to those of Asian and Caucasian laborers. By the second and third generation, 55 percent of Hispanic households are owners of their own homes, compared to 71 percent of white households and 44 percent of black households.

I would like to add to the figures given by Professor Rodriguez the fact that in Los Angeles County alone, the number of businesses created by Hispanic migrants rose from 57,ooo in 1987 to 210,ooo last year. Since 1990, the purchasing power of Hispanics has risen 65 percent. Furthermore, the Hispanic American economy in the US generates almost $400 billion a year—more than the Gross National Product of Mexico.

Do we Hispanics exploit or contribute, Mr. Huntington?

Mexican Balkanization | According to Huntington, the sheer numbers and customs of Mexican migrants will end up Balkanizing the US. North American unity has absorbed the European immigrant (including Jew and Arabs, who are not specifically mentioned by Huntington) because the immigrant of old, such as Chaplin in the movie of the same name, came from Europe, crossed the ocean and being white and Christian assimilated quickly into Anglo-Saxon culture and forgot his language and native customs, something which might surprise the Italians in The Godfather and the Central Europeans in The Deer Hunter.

No. Only the Mexicans and the Hispanics, in general, are separatists. These people have conspired to create a separate Hispanic American nation, the soldiers of a re-conquest of the territories lost in the Mexican-American War of 1848.

If we were to turn the page over, we would find English to be the most spoken Western language. Does Huntington ever think that this fact reveals to all a silent North American invasion of the entire world? Would we Mexicans, Chileans, French, Egyptians, Japanese and Hindi be justified in prohibiting English to be spoken in our respective countries? To stigmatize the Spanish language as a divisive, practically subversive, factor demonstrates the racist, divisive and provocative spirit of Professor Huntington.

To speak a second (or a third or fourth language) is a sign of culture throughout the world excepting, it would seem, in the Monolingual Eden invented by Huntington. To establish the requirement of a second language in the US (as occurs in Mexico and in France) would eliminate the Satanic effects that Huntington attributes to the language of Cervantes. Hispanic speakers in the US do not form impenetrable nor aggressive groups. They adapt themselves rapidly to English and, at times, conserve the use of Spanish, thus, enriching the accepted multiethnic and multicultural character of the US.

All in all, mono-lingualism is a curable disease. Many of us Latin Americans speak English without fear of being contaminated. Huntington presents us with an image of the US as a fearful trembling giant attacked by Spanish speakers. His tactic is fear of the “other,” so favored by fascist mentalities.

No: The Mexican and the Hispanic, in general, contribute to the wealth of the US. They give more than they receive. They wish to integrate themselves in the North American nation. They attenuate the cultural isolationism that has led the governments in Washington to so many disastrous international situations. They advocate a political diversification that has been brought about by Afro Americans, Native American, the Irish, Poles, Russians and Italians, Swedes and Germans, Arabs and Jews.

The Mexican menace | Huntington brings to the fore a musty anti-Mexican racism that I knew, all to well, as a child studying in the North American capital. The Volume Library, a one volume encyclopedia published in 1928 in New York, said the following: “One reason for Mexican poverty is the predominance of its racial inferiority.” “No dogs nor Mexicans allowed,” read the signs written on numerous restaurant facades in Texas during the Thirties. Today, the Latino electorate is seduced with mixed phrases in Spanish by many candidates, among them Gore and Bush during the last electoral process. It is an electoral campaign tactic (similar to Bush’s recent migration proposal).

But for us, Mexicans, Spaniards and Hispanic Americans, what is certain is that language is a factor of pride and unity. Five hundred million men and women speak Spanish around the world. But, it is not a fear factor, nor a menace. If Huntington fears the Hispanic Balkanization of the US and wishes to blame Latin American for its incapacity to establish democratic governments and economic development, we, at least, have lived without nationalistic separatisms since the dawn of Independence.

Perhaps what unites us is what Huntington believes disunites: the multicultural nature of the Spanish language. As Hispanic Americans and Spanish speakers, we are, also, Indo-European and Afro-American. We are the descendants of one nation, Spain, which cannot be understood without its racial multiplicity and Celt-Iberian, Greek, Phoenician, Roman, Arabic, Judaic, Gothic linguistic system. We speak a language with Celt-Iberian followed by Latin roots, enriched by a good portion of Arabic words and set in place by the Jews of the 13th century in the court of Alphonse the Wise.

With all we have mentioned, we are winners, not losers. The loser is Huntington, isolated in his imaginary land of Anglo speaking, white and Protestant racial purity. Even, if, in a curiously benevolent way, he offers his space to “Christianism.” Most assuredly, Israel and Islam are menaces to be equally condemned as are Mexico and Hispanic America, and, by extension today’s Spain, for their undesirable incursions into the old territories of Huntington’s Kingdom.

An idle question: Who will become the next Moby Dick of Captain Ahab Huntington?

michel

April 27, 2010 at 9:19 pm
carlos should stick to literature and leave his “critical theory” political work to air-conditioned cocktail parties in the company of other enlightened travellers who indulge in the theory of class identity, oppression and economics.

i found the essay quite thought provoking also.

his argument is based on misleading readers into thinking huntington is a paranoid white “racist” (a term coined by trotsky in 1905). i doubt that huntington is the least bit worried about americans who can speak spanish. more likely his concerns are about the real difference between “economic refugees”, immigrants and illegal aliens. perhaps we should read the book and decide for ourselves.

if the usa is such a terrible horrible ugly place filled with twisted old whale hunters it makes one wonder why there are an estimated 11-15 million human beings risking deportation in order to stay there.

i detest marxist ideology – especially when it comes from the mouths of those born with silver spoons up their ass. money grows on trees or as current thought in washington demands – it’s just a product of the peoples’ printing press – the rich can pay for the paper.

johnnyonline

April 27, 2010 at 11:23 pm
Cher Bruce! C’est vrai que j’ai perdu mes accents quelquepart dans mon bureau: je vois que toi tu n’as pas perdu tes lunettes roses: tu sembles émerger directement du conte de fée de Michaelle Jean. Mais ta bonne humeur demeure inspirante: re-bienvenue..

Anonymous

April 28, 2010 at 2:41 am
Bruce, en plus j’ai oublié mon nom: midnightjack

midnightjack

April 28, 2010 at 2:43 am
” i doubt that huntington is the least bit worried about americans who can speak spanish. more likely his concerns are about the real difference between “economic refugees”, immigrants and illegal aliens. perhaps we should read the book and decide for ourselves.”

I suppose you know that Huntington thought that immigrants, from wherever, should “assimilate” and become “Anglo-Protestant” in culture and language, period.

michel

April 28, 2010 at 7:54 am
“a relatively small group of FIRST GENERATION immigrants who vote with the Anglos. ”

A relatively small group that buried Harel in 2009 and buries every other pequiste/bloquiste candiate in every election in all “ethnic” Montreal ridings.

As a Francophone, would you vote for a Parti Greque? Parti Italien? Parti Polonais? You wouldn’t because why would you?

Anonymous

April 28, 2010 at 8:46 am
“As a Francophone, would you vote for a Parti Greque? Parti Italien? Parti Polonais? You wouldn’t because why would you?”

I might if I willingly moved to Greece, Italy or Poland.

Acajack

April 28, 2010 at 9:09 am
“A relatively small group that buried Harel in 2009 and buries every other pequiste/bloquiste candiate in every election in all “ethnic” Montreal ridings.”

The majority of whom voted for Harel AND Bergeron. Two enemies of the State!

“As a Francophone, would you vote for a Parti Greque? Parti Italien? Parti Polonais? You wouldn’t because why would you?”

Notice you are excluding those you don’t consider Francophones from your definition of Québécois. Not me, not Acajack, not MidnightJack, not anyone else here but you n’ Tony Kondaks.

That’s were the whole edifice of your argument fails. You assume we share your racialized view of society in which people belong to eternal ethnic groups, without any possibility of participating in society as individuals. (Notice Michel who can’t write two sentences without feeling he has to remind us of his French blood…)

There are two societies in Canada. One speaks French, one speaks English. Some of us participate in one, some in the other, others in the two.

Acajack believes the two still can share a federated state.

I have come to the conclusion that most Canadians feel like you that Québec is not a society, but stricly an ethnic group that cannot legitimately aspire to prosper and change through immigration (you have made that very clear).

“I don’t give a fuck wher people are from, I want to know where they’re going.” – Pierre Falardeau

angryfrenchguy

April 28, 2010 at 9:58 am
“(Notice Michel who can’t write two sentences without feeling he has to remind us of his French bloo”

That’s because you , AFG, call yourself French but you’re a Quebecois, not French. You dismissed my heritage as not having any import because I do not originate from Quebec but from France and the U.K.
You seem to limit the desription,”French”, to only those who are born in Quebec. You dismiss those who might have a different view of what it is to be of French origin.

You really should call yourself AQG, Angry Quebecois Guy.

You really don’t see that using the term, “French”, to describe yourself is quite misleading.

michel

April 28, 2010 at 10:33 am
A youtube video by Tim James, candidate for governor of Alabama, with appropiate commentary;

michel

April 28, 2010 at 10:40 am
@Bruce, who said:
“On the other hand Johnny is right in observing that institutions of the state became way too bloated and expensive, and that individual citizens should take up the challenge to do more for them selves. Deficits can not pile up for ever on your and our children’s shoulders. (…) The nerve of that Charest government! There was a furore when Québec daycare went from 5$ per day to 7$ and then to 10$. Sheesh!”

I have to point out to you that you shouldn’t confuse confuse spending with investment. Spending deficits are simply debts “passed to our children”; but investments build their future. Here’s what is the truth about the 7$ day care program:

“Over the past decade, the province’s poverty rate has fallen by 40 per cent. Fewer households are collecting social assistance. More Quebecers are working. Lone-parent families headed by women have seen a 30 per cent increase in their incomes.”
…

“We can continue to spend our time complaining that Quebec is the poverty dump of North America,” he [Pierre Fortin] wrote. “Or we can acknowledge the truth: that the money Quebecers have invested in the battle against poverty is producing good results.”
…
“His fear was that Quebec’s momentum might dissipate if people didn’t realize how much they were achieving.”
…
“The only headway the rest of the country has made in reducing poverty – and there has been a bit – is attributable to the strong employment growth during the 15-year economic expansion that preceded last fall’s downturn.”
…
“Quebec took a comprehensive approach, investing in an array of services that parents need to work and raise children. They include a universal $7-a-day child-care program, a pharmacare program, a generous parental leave program, a refundable tax credit for working parents and a growing stock of affordable housing.”
Read the whole article, it’s worth it:
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/692619

Tancrède

April 28, 2010 at 10:44 am
@Bruce again:

Another thing that is good to keep in mind (but have not much to do with the english theme of the post, sorry), is that the marginal tax rate of the higher end of the tax scale is at 48% in Quebec in 2009, while, during the golden era of the middle class, pre-Reagan and post-Great Depression, it was between 70% and 91%. (To make sense of these numbers you must know that they are the marginal rate, not the absolute rate).

Here for a graph:
http://www2.lactualite.com/jean-francois-lisee/ce-qui-ne-sera-pas-dans-le-budget-quebecois/2620/

So saying that Quebec has taxes that are too high makes sense only in the anti-social democrat framework that is so prevalent in Anglo-Saxons countries since Reagan and Thatcher. The same economic framework that explains why, while the rest of North America is still struggling with the 2008 crisis, we have a very low unemployment rate (it’s basic Keynesian economics: the stabilisator effect of fiscal policy).

Tancrède

April 28, 2010 at 11:00 am
So I guess it’s still relevant to the subject. In the Anglo-Saxon world, “socialism” is a dirty word, and so is “social-democracy”. No so in the rest of the world. Those who struggle the most with the crisis (like Ireland or Iceland) are those who listened too much to the sirens of neoliberalism (for lack of a better word).

Tancrède

April 28, 2010 at 11:04 am
“…one may be able to find certain commonalities between the situation desribed by Fuentes and the situation in Canada, particularly Quebec.”(Michel)

Definitely the WASP racisim for sure. I would add the WASP-Jewish racism. Notice how Huntington completely evade Israel and jews.

This, when the USA gives 3 billion$ a year to Israel, spends trillion$ on Israel’s wars, is slave to the jewish Federal Reserve, robbed by jewish bankers like Goldman Sach, obeying to AIPAC, brainwashed by hewish medias, Hollywood and Harvard (Huntignton’s), etc.. etc…

“The Volume Library, a one volume encyclopedia published in 1928 in New York, said the following: “One reason for Mexican poverty is the predominance of its racial inferiority.””(Carlos Fuentes)

While the editor, Abram Royer Brubacher, a mennonite, was writing this, the jewish bolcheviks were exterminating and sending the mennonites in gulags. The ones who could escape did so in Germany where they were welcommed and cared for. That includes under the nazi regime later-on. At the fall of Germany they were treated as collaborator by the “allies”, specially by Staline.

Huntington, a devout of the Trilateral Commission.

Gébé Tremblay

April 28, 2010 at 12:36 pm
“I might if I willingly moved to Greece, Italy or Poland”

Possibly, but unlikely. If you willingly moved to Italy, for example, you could but most likely would not support sectarian movements like Lega Nord per l’Indipendenza della Padania. You would most likely oppose the North League and any other movement that threatened to disrupt the integrity of the country you went through so much trouble to immigrate to.

You could become Italy’s Jospeh Facal, but you’d certainly be in the minority amongst the immigrants to Italy. For to support movements like Lega Nord (or Parti Quebecois), you have to develop an emotional connection to their cause. The cause that in a way runs against your cause (after all, you are an immigrant that willingly chose Italy as your destination) and a cause that you might not easily relate to.

In the case of the North League, you might be convinced by their arguments that dropping the poorer southern provinces would be beneficial for the more industrialised and prosperous northern regions – so you might warm up to them for selfish and materialistic reasons. But what can an immigrant relate to with Quebec sectarians? The protection of Joual? Rene Levesque or Camille Laurin, characters as abstract to an average immigrant as Napoleon and Bismarck? Bill 101? What’s the point of attachment? What are you offering? Certainly no improvement in the quality of life. Just the opposite actually, you are a potential risk to that quality and stability of life.

But we all know that, despite the (somewhat understandable) separatist spin that aims to demonize Canada by resorting to the most ridiculous arguments (last one I heard – “cultural genocide” of Francophones), Canada is not a bad country. Nobody immigrates to countries that are bad. The fact that millions of people immigrate to Canada yearly, and millions more dream about, proves that Canada is a decent country. That, along with the fact that the UN constantly, year in year our, ranks Canada top of their list.

So what are you going to believe? The facts or the separatist spin?

Anonymous

April 28, 2010 at 1:01 pm
Mr. Tremblay- You obviously have a log in your eye while pointing out specks in other peoples’ eyes.

The critique can be applied to all in Quebec who judge other people on the basis of language, etnic origin or race and who wish those “others” to quit being “other” and just “assimilate”, ( whatever that may mean).

I’ve seen quite a bit of prejudice directed by Francophones against Anglophones and Allophones.

I’ve also seen quite a bit of prejudice directed by Anglophones against Francophones and Allophones.

Allophones aren’t in a position to be prejudiced in an obvious way.

michel

April 28, 2010 at 1:04 pm
“The fact that millions of people immigrate to Canada yearly, and millions more dream about, proves that Canada is a decent country. ”

Meant to say thousands yearly, not millions. But million per decade. Still not bad.

“Again, from La Presse, federalist newspaper:
http://archives.vigile.net/pol/vote/pratteminethn.html”

Forget this “allogene” nonsense. I have something better regarding the “ethnic” vote. Check this out. This is pretty recent and based on straight forward unadulturated data – actual election results.

“On savait que Louise Harel ne réussirait pas à percer dans les arrondissements à forte densité anglophone et allophone. Il est intéressant, à cet égard, de noter que Gérald Tremblay a récolté le gros de sa majorité dans six arrondissements (Côte-des-Neiges-NDG, Lachine, LaSalle, Pierrefonds-Roxboro, Saint-Laurent et Saint-Léonard) où le taux de participation a été largement sous les 40% enregistrés dans l’ensemble de la ville. La concentration du vote anglophone et allophone en faveur de Gérald Tremblay est tellement élevée qu’il n’avait besoin que d’une mobilisation minimale dans ces arrondissements pour remporter la victoire.”

http://www.cyberpresse.ca/chroniqueurs/vincent-marissal/200911/04/01-918151-harel-battue-le-pq-dechire.php

Anonymous

April 28, 2010 at 1:21 pm
“Canada is not a bad country. Nobody immigrates to countries that are bad.”

I don’t think Canada is a bad country, but this doesn’t make this statement true.

One can debate what makes a “bad” country, but certainly many millions of people around the world have immigrated to countries that are poor, if only because they are not as poor as their own.

Places like Gabon an Senegal in west Africa have many immigrants from neighbouring countries living there.

Romania in central Europe isn’t rich by any stretch but it has many immigrants from neighbouring countries as well.

Acajack

April 28, 2010 at 1:37 pm