Franco-Americans and Racial Discourse in Historical Perspective

Abstract

French Canadian immigrants to the United States and their Franco-American descendants faced discrimination and marginalization due to their religious faith, their language, and their customs. From the late nineteenth century to the Second World War, they occupied an ambiguous place in the country’s ethnic and racial landscape. Their uncertain status resulted from their dual identity as a people of Western European descent and as North American settlers whose racial belonging was contested. Steering through that ambiguity and seeking a full-fledged whiteness, Franco-Americans at times accepted the racial litmus tests established by the dominant Anglo-Saxon group, not least by distancing themselves from East Asian migrants, African Americans, and Indigenous peoples.