Migration, Myth, and History: A Cross-Border Case Study

Abstract

This essay provides a case study in support of the proposition that a deep study of the history of cross-border migrations can help to remedy superficial stereotyping that haunts transborder dynamics. The author describes his findings from a study of French-Canadian migration across the eastern borderlands of Canada and the United States in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In this study, he found major faults in historical representations and cultural assumptions, which continue to be ascribed to the Franco-American population in New England and are often accepted by the French Americans themselves. He then asked how such illogical characterizations evolved and the reasons for it. His view is that once a detailed revision of the historical record is made, the larger society then has a potential to free itself of bias. His proposition is that re-evaluation of the history of migratory experience and its wide deployment among the people affected has contemporary relevance.