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Un Jacques Cartier Errant - Introduction

	Home Mania &      Phobia Mania of      the Month As Far As the      Eye Can See		The certainty that everything Franco-American was totally useless to me and the life I wanted to create kept gradually building up in me when I was a kid. It reached its apogee in 1955, when I was about 10, right in the middle of an otherwise enjoyable episode of "Disneyland."
			Werner von Braun, the German rocket scientist who chose American $$$ over the USSR's dictatorship of the proletariat at the end of the Second World War, was using graphs, charts, cartoons, and a bunch of other visual aids to explain how the English-speaking U.S. was destined to conquer space. And with his charts and graphs, he was also defining what I perceived to be a future full of hope, adventure, success, and optimism. According to von Braun and practically every one else who showed up on the black and white TV which had recently moved into the living room of our apartment in Waterville, Maine, everything was possible for a specific and select group - those who lived in the good old U.S. of A. and spoke English. Proud, supremely confident, their eyes and goals set on a distant star, the members of this group faced a bright and limitless future.
			How different their outlook was from that of the Francos who surrounded me. They rejected everything modern, avoided anything new at all costs, and refused (or were terrified) to raise their eyes, even if it were just to glance quickly at the horizon. Their main goal seemed to be to perpetuate a past that was comfortable to them and which promised them salvation at the end of their days.
			At the age of 10, while watching Werner von Braun and his rockets, I realized that what I wanted was the future and adventure, rather than the past and salvation. And judging from everything I had seen and heard in my ten short years of life, the future and adventure spoke only English.
			I'm telling you all this because it helps provide an answer for the first question many people ask when they learn that I write in French, even though I live in the biggest and most populous English-speaking country in the world, i.e,. "Why?" My pre-adolescent decision also helps provide some historical context, allowing me to talk about what was going on in my head - and in the wacky world of Franco-Americans - about twenty years ago when I started the process of writing which ended up creating the three plays which you'll find on the pages that follow.
			The certainty I felt at ten was so strong that it stayed with me for the better part of twenty years. Even today, I don't have to search too far or too hard to find it..or even revive it. It accompanied me to Assumption Prep for my high school career. It advised me to major in English during the year I spent at Boston College. In a strange twist, it even told me to choose French as the major for my B.A. and M.A. If I was going to speak French, it whispered to me, then I would speak it like a true Frenchman for France whom the Anglos respected, not alike a Franco-American hick whom they constantly put down, assuming they were even aware of his miserable existence.
			But at the start of the 70s, the process of anglicization, which was the key to my future, had slowed alarmingly. In spite of my best efforts at assimilation, I was still different - in thought, word, and deed (through my fault, through my fault etc.) - from the members of the dominant culture. To make matters worse, I felt that my life was constantly off key.
			That's when I started to re-examine my Franco identity to see if it might not be more comfortable and livable. This process of ethnic rediscovery was going great guns for a couple of years. I accepted everything Franco without question and without reservation. Being Franco was great and it was fun. It stayed great and fun until the 1974 "Congrès du Comité de Vie Franco-Américaine" in Manchester, New Hampshire.
			That's when I realized that fate had a little surprise in store for me.
			At the Congrès in Manchester, I was among the dozen or so "young Francos" who attended. At the Congrès in Manchester, I rediscovered the bleak pessimism, the paralyzing fatalism, the obsession with the past, and a whole collection of other Franco ethnic traits that were neither great nor fun. At the Congrès in Manchester, I realized that, as a group, we were at death's door when I heard an endless series of speeches from people who kept congratulating themselves for preserving and perpetuating "notre belle langue et notre belle culture" - at the very moment when every Franco under the age of forty, except for our little group, was trying to get as far away from anything Franco as possible. At the Congrès in Manchester, I was reminded very clearly why I had tried so hard to assimilate into the dominant culture for so long.
			That's when I realized something that scared me to death. I wasn't entirely comfortable or happy either as a Franco or as an American. It simply wasn't possible for me to adapt to an existing identity. My father's generation (and those that preceded his), knew that it was Franco more than it was American. The generations that would follow would clearly be more American than Franco. My generation seemed to be lost somewhere in an identity netherland.
			As a result, I felt I had three choices. I could resign myself to being miserable by choosing one of the false identities available - Franco or American. Or, I could alternate between the two in a state of perpetual schizophrenia. Unfortunately, selecting either of these two choices had been responsible for driving most of the generations of Francos that preceded me to drink
			The third choice was to create a newer and more appropriate identity - one that I could perhaps share with others of my generation who were having as much trouble as I was simply trying to "find" themselves. Naturally, that's the choice I made - not out of some heroic impulse or a commitment to the "cause" of saving the French language in New England, but simly because the idea of living an entire lifetime without a clear and comfortable sense of identity scared the hell out of me.
			If I were going to create a new Franco-American identity for myself, I wanted to do it on a positive note. Among the Franco traits that remained great and fun even after the debacle of the 1974 Congrès was the impressive talent and creativity that could be found in a surprisingly large cross section of the Franco population. Just go to most Franco gatherings and you'll see exactly what I mean.
			In 1974, I felt that this creative spirit had not disappeared from the Franco scene. Instead, it had been imprisoned for years in a series of deathly boring and blindly self-congratulatory speeches that were the mainstays of the Congrès du Comité de Vie and all other events sponsored by the Franco elite. The time had come to free this creative spirit, at least in me.
			This would have a number of positive results. First, it would help me create a personalized Franco-American identity by rediscovering one of the most positive Franco traits and putting it to use. Then, if others began writing and composing and singing on a regular basis, we could perhaps contemplate the future of the Franco-American group with some optimism. A future isn't maintained, or conserved, or protected. It must be actively created day after day, even if we must face the frightening thought that the results might be impossible to calculate and foresee. This essential process required the liberation of the Franco creative spirit.
			Even if we couldn't "save" the traditional Franco-American reality which was then - and still is - alive only because of heroic efforts and advanced life support systems, we might at least ensure that it wouldn't die without leaving us a few last words that could inspire us more than the platitudes which it had taken to mumbling over an over again in its dotage.
			The liberation of my creative spirit really got started in 1975. I was able to write a series of skits for the two half-hours per month allotted to Francos on the "Tout en Français" radio program at WFCR, the public radio station at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Don Dugas, who was then a U.Mass faculty member, had fought successfully for the air time, token though it seemed. With his encouragement and help - especially in playing the perpetual interviewer, I created such memorable characters as Mathias Barnabé (the poet laureate of East Vassalboro); Philias Berthiaume, Ph.D.; and Super Grenouille, amoung others.
			Don Dugas was also the key to the creation of "Un Jacques Cartier Errant" in the Spring of 1976. Don had moved to the National Materials Development Center for French and Portuguese in Bedford, N.H., where he quickly got to work setting up a colloquium that would provide a radically different atmosphere and point of view form the ones we found at the Congrès in 1974.
			Part of the colloquium would be an evening of entertainment, high-lighting new Franco-American creative efforts. He asked Paul Paré and me if we could perhaps come up with something to help fill the evening. The result was Paul's one act play - "Les Trois Anges," and my "Un Jacques Cartier Errant." As it was finally constituted, the program included songs from the group Psaltery, made up of Lil Labbé and Don Hinckley, and two of my radio skits in addition to the plays. That was an extraordinary night for me, because it proved that works written and performed by Francos could entertain and even touch an audience - even one that included "real" Frenchmen and Québécois. That realization set my head spinning. To this day, it hasn't stopped.
			"Un Jacques Cartier Errant" was a perfect first play for me. It explains why it is so important for Francos of my generation to create a new identity. The play also introduces themes that dominate my work.
			The first is the idea that we have both the right and the obligation to scrutinize the expectations/values/messages, etc., presented to us by our Franco side and our American side before deciding to accept them and perpetuate them. It's the only real way to find an identity of our own - and have any hope of advancing the Franco fact.
			The second theme is best expressed by the character of Ti-Jean. "Until we find our own song to sing...and a real voice to sing with," Francos are doomed to fade away into oblivion, simply because they decided to perpetuate everything and create nothing.
			Together, these two themes give an overview of the process that I continue to use to create a future and an identity. Occaisonally and surprisingly, the process works. Gradually, I am transforming myself into a Marie-Marthe who has gone beyond the character in the play and no longer needs to lip sync to Maurice Chevalier tapes to express her creativity. Instead, I have started using my own voice, while still constantly fighting the need to preface every utterance with an apology.
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