Soup Or Salad?

Yesterday's Boston Globe reported on a New England group I am ashamed not to have known about. Franco-Americans, who once comprised a "virtually separate nation within New England: Le Quebec d'en Bas--Quebec Down Below," are spread across five New England states and make up 17 percent of its population.

While once it was possible to live one's entire life in New England speaking French, today's community is trying to save its culture and prevent a gradual loss of its language. The descendants of those Quebecers who had moved to the United States from 1860 to 1930 in search of employment are afraid of cultural extinction.

The contrast is bewildering. Some Quebecers in Canada feel confident enough to start their own nation, while literally across the St. Lawrence River, the same group--who to this day identify themselves as "French Canadian"--aren't even sure they will survive beyond the next generation. This stark contrast betrays a lot about the development of two very different systems.

The United States has long been touted as a melting pot, which combines the elements of different cultures and races into one uniform soup. This is the ultimate compromise, a blending that creates an e pluribus unum cultural hegemony that everyone buys into. Whether you're Black, Asian, European or Native American, the culture you identify with most is the culture of McNachos and Mickey Mouse.

Canada, still in need of a catchy analogy like "melting pot," claims to be more of a tossed salad (different elements with the same oh-so-delicate dressing), or--my favorite--a fruitcake (chunks of different goodies in the same heavy cake). This is an integrative, not assimilative, approach to racial integration. Ministries for multiculturalism, official bilingualism and a high rate of immigrant flow create an environment where different ethnic groups are free to continue their cultures without being filtered through a dominant Canadian one.

There is no such thing as a dominant Canadian culture. This can be both a good and a bad thing. Canada has never developed a tangible sense of national identity beyond a strange Anglo-Franco-non-Americo cultural loan. The fruitcake model is expensive to maintain, providing government services in multiple tongues and grants to scores of multicultural groups. In Canada these costs are judged to be worth the more tolerant, less divisive and more racially secure situation which fruitcake societies produce.

Unfortunately, fruitcakes can also be thrown into melting pots. There is a danger in the spread of American cultural imperialism. Gresham's Law may prove to be true as American mass culture threatens to absorb the diversity and richness of different cultures, not only within America, but also outside its borders. The French realize this when they picket EuroDisney. The New England Quebecers are only finding out. A world in which ethnic cultures become Americanized and passed off as representatives of their true forms would be a shame.

Some nations are beginning to realize the style over substance nature of American mass culture. Going to Disneyland is a fun diversion, but in a century, someone will laugh at those plastic mouse ears, the basis of an entire culture. Mickey Mouse in fact stands a better chance of lasting the century than the Quebecers in New England.

Patrick S. Chung's column appears on alternate Saturdays.