S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 7 9 5 L’Esprit de L’Escalier graphic by megan dunlap Souvenir The power of words can echo through history–for better or worse. By Rhea Côté Robbins J e me souviens–I remember. A whisper of memory glimpsed on every Quebec license plate. For a French speaker, it’s an invitation to see yourself reflected in the public place. In the literary arts, past interpretations of Franco-Americans by New England writers have recently come under scrutiny. In question are the works of Kate Douglas Wiggin, Dorothy Can- field Fisher, Thornton Wilder, and Sarah Orne Jewett. Respectively, the authors’ writings examine class divides, eugenics, and portrayals of the French heritage peo- ple, whether unwelcoming or sympathet- ic, in the literature of New England–a col- lection of states with high percentages of French populations. In literature, words can become bridges or they can become walls. You can imagine my shock when I read a description of a New Hampshire town’s population of “Canuck families” as “beyond” and “across the tracks” in the 1938 play Our Town by Thornton Wild- er. At the time, the force of the word “Ca- nuck” with its meaning in the U.S. was like a concussion from an explosion– the word a surreptitious silencing of the French identity. Author Dorothy Canfield Fisher recently came under criticism for her perceived sup- port of the eugenics movement, which labels those of the Franco-American population as undesirable. Fisher writes unflatteringly of the French in her novels and plays, such as Tourists Accommodated, a play based in Vermont that calls for only the “right kind of people” to visit the state. Abenaki ed- ucator Judy Dow has called for the Ver- mont Department of Libraries to revoke the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children’s Book Award. The decision was later tabled. Elsewhere, Kate Douglas Wiggin, au- thor of the popular children’s novel, Rebec- ca of Sunnybrook Farm, writes disparag- ingly of the French population in her 1903 novel, Rose O’ the River. Wiggin’s stories were set in the fictional town of Riverboro, Maine, but fosters a very real sense of preju- dice toward the Franco-American commu- nity. On the other side of the coin, South Berwick icon Sarah Orne Jewett writes with empathy on French culture in several of her short stories, including Little French Mary and Grey Mills of Farley. What is the impact of these writings on the souvenir or collective memory? The lit- erary fabric that forms the legacy of a par- ticular geography is marked by either sup- port or subtle prejudice by the words of au- thors. From our present-day perspective, it’s important to reexamine these sources and decide which are representative of the populations, and which do not accurately reflect the inherent diversity of a particu- lar people. n RheaCôtéRobbinsistheauthorof‘downthePlains,’and editorofHeliotrope-FrenchHeritageWomenCreate,forwhich shewontheBookAwardforAnthology(Editors)attheMaine LiteraryAwardsin2017. “The force of the word ‘Canuck’ with its meaning in the U.S. was like a concussion from an explosion–the word a surreptitious silencing of the French identity.” Late 18th century: from French,from souvenir ‘remember,’ from Latin sub- venire ‘occur to the mind.’ –Dictionary.com