Rupture and Continuity in the Representation of Immigration
Despite a rather common assumption, immigration is not a recent phenomenon in Québécois society. Montreal received massive migration waves at the turn of the last century, which harbored a great deal of cultural, linguistic and religious diversity. The encounter with immigrants and the reality of pluralism had already been experienced by Francophones more than a hundred years ago, despite the fact that it left few positive traces in the Québec historical narrative. One could go as far as consider that the reluctance and the hostile perceptions that are found today among some Québécois could be retraced to this distant past. To better understand the trauma experienced in this respect by certain Francophones, this article critically studies 16 000 editorials that appeared in Le Devoir from 1910 to 1963 and having to do with the integration of new immigrants. A daily published in Montréal and a major voice of French Canadian nationalism, Le Devoir has often sustained a position of visceral rejection vis-à-vis the welcoming of immigrants in francophone Québec. These declarations made in a distant past help us measure today the extent of the xenophobic reticence manifested on this question in certain circles.