Diaspora and a sense of belonging

[frandroid]

I'm reading through various friends' blogs and forums and I see a whole lot of "all the people I know in London are safe", which makes me look at my screen with bulging eyes. You know multiple people in London?! I think that many Anglo-Canadians* still have a lot of connections with the ancestral Isles, familial and cultural. As for us Frenchies, all contact ended in 1759. I do not have relatives in Paris, and I don't know anyone in Québec that has relatives in France, and that's probably the case for 95% of Québécois. Those that have connections have them because of recent reconnecting, either through marrying a French citizen, work or some such thing. We as a population block have been rather homogenous for 200 years, with most English keeping their distance, and any of them fleeing the province starting from the 1970s. (There's been a lot more mixing with the Irish population, since they were Catholics, and in many cases they were absorbed.) I think this continuous social isolation has created a much stronger sense of belonging here (or being stuck here), and a much more conscious identity, than for Anglo-Canadians. I would say that a certain proportion of the latter could be considered part of an "Anglo Diaspora" whereas Québécois people, while having a common ancestry with France, are pretty much on their own.

Anyway, this is a bit rough but I'll have to think more about this. Nitpicking about my labelling is appreciated.

*Anglo-Canadians here refers to people from the British Isles, not to all English-speakers in the country.

Comments

[the-watchmaker.livejournal.com]

i don't know that anglo-canadians necessarily have family in london. if others are anything like me, it's just that we've made friends over the internet with other english speaking people, and some of them are reasonably enough from england. i know only a small handful of people in england, and only two even relatively well. both live in or around london, and i met one online while the other grew up in canada and moved to england for a job. no family ties whatsoever.

[seaya.livejournal.com]

I think you are jumping to conclusions.

The people I know in London have nothing to do with my personal ancestry, and I suspect that's the case for most of those on your friends list.

I just know some folk who work and live in London is all.

There's one I have not heard from, though I don't usually hear from her, so I'll worry until I do, I guess. She from HK originally but moved to London for employment purposes.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

Didja just promote yourself to Canadian? ;]

There are people in my list that I do know have living British relatives, I do know quite a few English Canadians with links to the UK, and I'm regularly surprised by people who I discovered have only been here in Toronto for two or three generations.

United-Statesians of British extraction have been in the U.S. for generally longer time, and like Québécois people, they've had a break with the motherland. (Interesting how I'm thinking "motherland" for what's removed, whereas one's current country would be the "fatherland" (I have "la patrie" in mind). Who knew gendered lands had different locations! (and where's trannyland damnit?!)) Furthermore, Anglo-Canadians have had a continuous cultural and political connection with Great Britain, where in spite of being a "country", Canada was still under some legal way an underling of the United Kingdom until 1982, and 'Lizbeth al-Deux is still our head of state. So the connection I'm investigating is not just genealogical, but also cultural.

motherland

[subnuminous.livejournal.com]

Note that Britain's national personification, Britannia, is female.

[estrellada.livejournal.com]

I think this also depends on the family, when and where they emigrated from. It's entirely possible I have relations in the British Isles, but they're several generations removed. (Tho I'm a first generation Canadian, both sides of the family are a couple gens away from Europe.) OTOH, I do know someone my age who is in contact with her aunts and uncles in England, at least sporadically.