Both of these groups—the Irish and the French Canadians—  held firmly to their identities, religion, language, tradition and heritage. 

 

In the late 1800s through the mid 1900s, the Franco-Americans largely dominated the neighborhood known as “Little Canada” in Lewiston, Maine.  There, French-speaking Catholic families shared traditions and raised their children much like they would in Canada. But, as it goes with many immigrant groups, there was huge pressure levied by society to break down their cultural heritage. In 1892, Maine enacted a law that required a literacy test for French speaking citizens. In order to vote, they had to be able to read Maine’s Constitution in English. In 1919, schools banned speaking French in the classroom, punishing those who did. Interestingly enough, French is now a second language studied in the classroom. Anti-Catholic sentiment was high, often scaring many French Canadians away from their faith. Promoting this sentiment was the Klu Klux Klan, a hate group that has been present across the US for years, but which had an alarmingly high membership in Maine in the early 1900s.

 

Even with pressure to “Americanize,” Francos held tight to their traditions and familiar groups. Many families lived in multi-generational homes. Celebrations were rich in tradition. Music was celebrated with songs about Canada. In 1880, Le Messager, a French-language newspaper, began printing in Lewiston for the French speaking Francos, further knitting together the community through the news media. Little Canada only began to disintegrate in the 1960s as the baby boomers began, as they did across all of America, to move away from culturally-based community groups and into suburban neighborhoods.

 

Like the Francos, the Irish lived together in close neighborhoods.  Many were illiterate and worked at brutally hard jobs, but it was better than a life back in a land with famine. Also similar to the Francos, good Irish Catholic families were large and often 10 or 12 children needed to be fed. Child labor was not uncommon because there just wasn’t enough money to feed all the children who would otherwise be at school.

 

The Irish were the butt of jokes and discrimination. Employers would often reject an applicant if he or she were Irish, with posts that read “Irish Need Not Apply.”  Newspapers described their neighborhoods as dirty and unruly and added to the unfair image of the Irish. With the advent of birth control in the 1960s, many Irish, like the Francos, chose to control their family size. This went a long way toward improving personal finances and made it easier to raise children and pull the family out of poverty.