Oldal 175 [175]
OCR
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"
