ON ROOTS AND CULTURAL IDENTITY

One of the subjects I like to raise with strangers when I meet them is their ancestry.  If I hear a last name that sounds Polish, for example, I’ll ask whether I’ve got it right.  If the person is Canadian, I’ll ask how many generations the family has been in this country.  In Europe, I wanted to know why the Serbs had it in for the Croats and vice versa, and why the Turks and the Greeks had such a hate on for one another.  People gritted their teeth and gave me the best explanations they could.  While in Central America I met many locals, tour guides for example, and asked them about their ancestry.  I received all manner of answers, ranging from “I don’t know!” — which I took to mean “I don’t much care!” — to a comprehensive history lesson about the Maya.

My own roots are decidedly Acadian.  I’ve traced the ancestral lines of my eight great-grandparents.  The first of their ancestors to arrive in Nouvelle France were: Pierre Arsenault, Jean Pitre, Michel Haché dit Gallant, François Blanchard, Jean Gaudet, Pierre LeClair, Robert Cormier, and Antoine Bourque.  The only one who wasn’t French was Jean (Benèque) Pitre, born around 1636, and of either Flemish or English origin.  The women who married seven of these eight men, Marie Guérin, Marie Pesseley, Anne Cormier, Marguerite Caret, Rose Belliveau, Marie Péraud, and Antoinette Landry were of French ancestry.  We don’t know the name of Jean Gaudet’s first wife, the mother of my direct ancestor, but it’s safe to assume she was French also.

Growing up in an English-French community like Wellington, I considered my Acadian identity confusing at best and, at worst, a negative attribute.  Those who spoke English with a French accent were made fun of by English playmates that, ironically, could hardly put three English words together themselves.  In turn, we mocked our classmates at École régionale Évangéline who’d had little occasion to speak English before high school.  Having a mastery of English at that age made me feel superior.

I was fortunate to hear English spoken around me at a very young age, and was fluent in both languages by the time I started school.  One day, when I was about five, I visited two neighbour boys who happened to be English.  Back home, I walked in the door and announced triumphantly that I’d learned new English words: “Goddamn” and “Jesus Christ”.  My mother and grandmother were not impressed!

All through elementary and high school, I much preferred English subjects to French.  After five years at École régionale Évangéline, my spoken and written French remained at a very basic level, just enough to get me by in my own community.  I chose to attend an English university in Fredericton, partly because I had no interest in studying in French. 

Acquaintances began calling me “J-P”, simply out of convenience, and because many of us had nicknames.  Early in my career, I tried to use my given name but soon tired of being called “John Paul” or worse, “Gene Paul”, by English people who wouldn’t even try to pronounce it correctly.  None of this did anything to strengthen my Acadian identity.

 

Four life events changed all that.  The first was a concert Elva and I attended at the Confederation Centre of the Arts, probably in 1978.  We had returned to the Island after a two-year stint in Toronto and had heard that Angèle Arsenault and Les danseurs Évangéline would be performing on the Centre’s main stage theatre.  I didn’t know quite what to expect but decided to attend out of curiosity.

I’ll never forget walking towards the Centre and seeing École régionale Évangéline school buses lined up nose-to-tail in front of the Queen Street entrance.  Inside, people from my home community milled about in the entrance foyer, many of them wide-eyed in amazement at the grandeur of the place, most of them in the Centre for the first time in their lives.  I got caught up in the buzz and looked forward to the concert.

Angèle was a big star, almost too big for us to call our own, but well-suited to the Centre’s main stage.  I remember her giving a fine performance; it’s what we expected.  But when Les danseurs Évangéline, a group of young people de par chez-nous bounded onto the stage, there was a noticeable change in the audience reaction.  The fiddles played our tunes, our toes started tapping, and we saw the old familiar dance steps being performed.  You could feel a sense of pride, wonderment and sheer joy emanating from family members and friends.  Needless to say, the dancers earned deafening applause and a standing ovation.

I got caught up in the atmosphere, and I still get goose-bumps from the memory of that magical night.  For the first time, the Confederation Centre of the Arts belonged to us.  Our own were good enough to be on the main stage!  I consider this single event to be the genesis of my Acadian identity.

The second key life event was the first annual meeting I attended of La Société Saint-Thomas d’Aquin, the province’s Acadian and Francophone organization, in 1979.  At the time, I was very much opposed to a radical political element within the SSTA that advocated a confrontational approach as the way to promote the French language and culture.  I was named to the Board of the SSTA in 1979 and became its President in 1987.  For twenty-five years, I was a director of provincial, regional and national organizations that promoted French language and culture.  These experiences contributed greatly to my understanding of the history of my people and encouraged me to improve my spoken and written French.

The third was my discovery of Acadian history through researching family genealogy.  As an only child raised in a single-parent family, I became curious to know where I’d come from.  Although it took me several years, I managed to piece together my eight family trees.  Along the way, I learned much about my people’s triumphs and struggles, and became especially fascinated by how each of these families made it through the terrible years of the Deportation, the 1750s and 1760s.

The fourth key event in my life was having children.  Without a doubt, this is the most important thing that’s ever happened to me.  With the help of my life partner, Elva, I raised three beautiful children: Sylvie, Clément and Jacques.  I give Elva and her wonderful family much of the credit for instilling in them a strong dose of the essential Acadian identity at a young age.

Although each of them may express it in a different way, it’s an important part of who they are.  My children have given me many examples of how personality traits and values associated with the Acadian identity have influenced their lives in the workplace and elsewhere in a positive way.  The best of these are the strong work ethic, the ability to seek and find compromise, the ability to work with others, and the Acadian sense of humour.

I believe in genetic memory, also called racial memory, defined in psychological terms as memories, feelings and ideas inherited from our ancestors as part of a “collective unconscious”.  We’re all born with genetic memory.  Some of us choose to seek it out and learn from it; others don’t.  I’m the sum of the genes of all of my Acadian ancestors.  I therefore believe I can better understand myself by getting to know them.

I shudder to think of where I’d be today if I hadn’t discovered my roots, listened to what my ancestors were telling me, and nourished my Acadian identity.  As I enter my seventh decade, the foundation is stronger than ever although, as always, I have a foot in each of two worlds: French and English.  I’ve tried to adopt the strongest elements of both cultures and I’m thankful to be able to live in a country that favours this.  While my Acadian identity was slow to take root, my voyage of self-discovery has served me well and I’m a better person for it.

FREE-RANGE KIDS

Several years ago, while working on a consulting project in the Ottawa area, I sat in the concourse of an office building complex eating my lunch.  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a group of pre-schoolers walking through the concourse with their adult supervisors.  I actually heard them before I saw them.  My jaw dropped when I noticed they were tethered like a team of sled dogs, their wrists tied to a rope that held them all together.

The previous weekend, Elva and I had visited our niece, Dominique, and nephews Denis and Miguel, who lived in a rural area of Prince Edward Island.  Their father kept several breeds of poultry, a dog, and many cats, and their huge yard featured a garden, an orchard, outbuildings, and place for a treehouse.  As I sat there hoping my eyes were playing tricks on me, I was struck by the contrast between the poor little creatures I was looking at and my niece and nephews, and it reminded me of how child rearing has changed since I grew up in Wellington.

My friends and I swam unsupervised in the Ellis River and Barlow’s Pond; we climbed trees and built forts in the woods; we made fires; we built tunnels from hay bales in Agno’s loft; we tunnelled into snow banks behind Cliff’s barn; we skated on the sewage lagoon on ice that was too thin; and we climbed onto boxcars in the rail yard when we weren’t supposed to.  We even built a zip line once using a rope tied between two trees.  Yes, I fell many times and, yes, I got hurt.  So did others.  But it never stopped us, and our parents allowed us our freedom.  We were having too much fun!

At Easter, Elva and I visited our grandchildren, Samuel and Natalie.  They live with their parents in a semi-rural area of Saint John in a small subdivision on a dead-end street, surrounded by forest.  Old enough now to play outside by themselves, they have the run of their spacious yard.  They clamber on their gym set, ride their bikes, skateboards and scooters, and even climb the odd tree.  Samuel is old enough to make a fire from a pile of leaves, using a magnifying glass; just like my cousin, Aubrey, taught me to do when I was Samuel’s age.  Before long, he’ll be burning his name into the front step!  I loved watching them explore their world.

Last week, Jacques and Isabelle sent us a video of our granddaughter, Lucie, climbing on playground equipment in a park in Edmonton.  She’ll be two later this month and is well on her way to becoming a free-range kid as well, just like Pépé Jean-Paul and Mémé Elva were in our youth.

On my way home from Saint John, I listened to CBC interview the principal of a school in Auckland, New Zealand on Anna Maria Tremonti’s program, The Current http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2014/04/21/playing/   Bruce McLachlan explained what happened at Auckland’s Westlake Primary School when they decided to ban playground rules.  Amazing things in fact: a decline in rates of bullying, injuries and vandalism, as well as an increase in students’ concentration during class.  Students flourished happily in their new-found freedom.

Getting rid of traditional health and safety-based playground rules meant that students at the school could climb trees, ride skateboards, and play all kinds of games during recess.  They were also allowed to play in a “loose parts pit” containing junk pieces such as wood, old tires, and an old fire hose.  Principal McLachlan was asked to explain how banning playground rules led to a reduction in bullying.  His answer: “The kids are too busy to even think about bullying.  They’re not bored anymore.”  They also discovered that children were so occupied with the activities that the school did not need its timeout area anymore or as many teachers patrolling the playground.

The prestigious Economist magazine published an article on the subject this past January.  Here are several excerpts:

Thanks to helicopter parents and armies of lawyers, today’s primary-school children lead more risk-averse but less science-rich lives.  Playtimes are heavily supervised interludes of restricted play on health-and-safety-approved equipment, hurriedly cancelled if something terrible—say, a light rain shower—threatens. Unsurprisingly, many kids get bored, which means fights, bullying, vandalism and worse.  Not for nothing are today’s playtimes so tightly controlled.

Researchers expect kids taking part in the [Auckland] project will be better able to handle risk when they’re older, when more is at stake.  Better to discover the pain of a bike mishap at age 6 than a car crash at age 16.

Parents don’t sue in New Zealand; in America and Australia they do nothing but. Since many current parents were cossetted when young, there are at least two generations of “bubble-wrapped” kids to pop before the dream of free-range schooling can come true.

I think we’ve become over-protective of our kids, and I say this even with the experience of almost having lost a child to drowning.  Our daughter, Sylvie, fell into the river that ran alongside our yard when she was just short of her fourth birthday.  Had it not been for the quick action of our neighbor, Diane Bouchard, she might not be with us today.  It just wasn’t her time.

Needless to say, Elva and I learned a valuable lesson, but it didn’t cause us to over-protect our children.  In fact, I savour the moments when my now-adult children confess to childhood pranks previously unknown to us, many of them involving considerable risk.  I truly believe they learned about risk at a very young age.  I hope we gave them enough freedom to explore.

And so, I wonder how those poor little creatures I saw in the concourse of the mall in Ottawa that day are coming along in their intellectual and physical development.  Do their parents let them ride their bikes on neighbourhood streets?  Do they let them climb trees?  Do they give them the freedom to take risks?  Do they even let them out of the house alone?

I’m thankful that I was raised during a time when kids could be kids, and unstructured play was the way of our world.

As everyone knows, when children reach their teenage years, the risks are multiplied considerably.  As we say in French: Petits enfants, petits problèmes; grands enfants, gros problèmes!  Raising children is the most important responsibility given to parents.  Giving them the tools and strategies they need to survive is time well spent.  But a degree of freedom is essential.  And the sooner the better!