Oldal 175 [175]
GROWING TOGETHER OR APART?...
example, despite attempts to promote French in business in the province,
many of the jobs available in Montreal require a high level of English (and
sometimes more English than French), so that those who only speak French
are at a manifest disadvantage in that market. This broad context nonetheless
needs to be set alongside the real (and very pressing) vulnerabilities of many
recent immigrants at school in Québec, and Godbout’s film has the merit of
recognizing this.
In considering the Québec context of interaction with the vulnerable
cultural other, I reflect on remarks by the literary critic Marianne Hirsch,
in her important recent essay “Vulnerable Times”, such as her concept
of interconnection, which she considers vital to a recognition of shared
human vulnerability.* I remain conscious of what Katie Oliviero has recently
termed “vulnerability politics” in her 2018 book of that title and of the ease
with which the concept of vulnerability can be used by anyone to his or
her own advantage.” Quebec may be culturally vulnerable in terms of the
North American Anglophone context, but immigrant minorities face their
own challenges. Some of these challenges relate to difficult material and
emotional circumstances, while the question of how to belong - especially if
one is segregated from the majority population — can also create problematic
zones of uncertainty.Some critics, like the writer and literary critic Marco
Micone, have argued that at times Québec has focused on its own linguistic
and cultural vulnerability at the expense of the linguistic and cultural
heritage of the ethnic minorities in the province. Micone, who was born in
Italy in 1945, is an example of an immigrant author writing in French who
consistently makes the case for solidarity between cultural groups. While
wholly sympathetic to the Québécois need to preserve their language and
distinct culture, and of their previous exploitation by a dominant group,
he often shifts the emphasis towards the difficult economic circumstances
and exploitation of immigrants, whose talents he also sees as not being fully
recognized or utilized in Québec society. These issues are clear for example in
“Les Geignards”, the play at the end of his important set of autobiographical
and political fragments in Le Figuier enchante, or in “Speak What”, his riposte
to the famous nationalist Québécois poem “Speak White”. These works by
Micone argue for a reciprocal empathy between recent immigrants and the
established Francophone population.f
* Marianne Hirsch, Vulnerable Times, in J. Butler — Z. Gambetti — L. Sabsay (eds.),
Vulnerability and Resistance, Durham, Duke University, 2019, 76-96 (80, 81).
5 Katie Oliviero, Vulnerability Politics: The Uses and Abuses of Precarity in Political Debate,
New York, NYU Press, 2018.
6 Marco Micone, Le Figuier enchanté, Montreal, Boréal, 2008; Marco Micone, Speak What,
Suivi d’une analyse par Lise Gauvin, Montreal, VLB Editeur, 2001.
e 173"