By ROBIN CAUDELL
Abby Paige grew up thinking she was one thing: French Canadian.
Later, the South Burlington native realized she really wasn't.
"My family has been in Vermont for several generations," said Paige, who lives in Montreal. "My maternal grandmother's family came during the turn of the 20th century from Quebec. My maternal grandfather, turned out, came earlier. By the time he was born, they had hidden the fact that they were French."
Though no one in Paige's family speaks French, she was always told they were French.
"I got married to a Canadian in 2007. I was spending a lot of time in Quebec. I spent time in Quebec as a kid. We have connection with distant relatives here. My grandmother grew up speaking French. My mother doesn't speak it and neither does any of her siblings."
She talked over her identity issues with Jay Craven, who organized Burlington's quad celebration last year. That conversation was the catalyst for the commissioned show "Piecework: When We Were French," which brings 10 vivid Franco-Vermont characters to life onstage Friday and Saturday at the Main Street Landing Performance Arts Center in Burlington.
DEFINING FRENCH
In her one-woman show, Paige metamorphoses into a baker, teenager, salesman, genealogist, musician and the irrepressible housekeeper at Burlington's St. Joseph's Catholic church, the first French-Canadian parish in the United States.
The show is produced by Burlington City Arts in association with Lost Nation Theater, Marlboro College, Middlebury Town Hall Theater, Kingdom County Productions and Alliance Francaise of the Lake Champlain Region.
"It's not just about my family," Paige said. "I did (face-to-face) interviews and a few phone interviews with people whose families were French and had a variety of different experiences. People who speak fluent French and still consider themselves to be French and really involved in that aspect of their culture some."
Some of them still have relatives in Quebec who they visit.
"People make a real effort to keep tradition alive in their family through music, food and religion and that kind of stuff," Paige said. "And there are some people, more of my end of the spectrum, who (just) have meat pie at Christmas. I have some cousins in Quebec. My family considers themselves French. What is it about us that makes us French?"
Paige gleaned answers to this question from books and oral histories at the Vermont Folklife Center, speaking with members of her extended Franco-Vermont family and North Country community leaders including Dr. Celine Paquette, who founded the Samuel de Champlain History Center in the Village of Champlain.
In "Piecework," the diverse characters range in age and gender.
"The show is a series of monologues," Paige said. "They are talking about their memories of how they grew up and their connections to their Franco-American-ness. One of the ways we keep our family history and culture alive is by telling the stories, keeping those memories alive. Even having small bits — a song that you remember, the meat pie at Christmastime. I'm not real French but I make meat pie."
STEREOTYPES
"Piecework" delves into the good, bad and ugly of the Franco-American experience.
"In Vermont, the French were called n——— of the north," she said. "I know that it was harder. Up until I was a kid, people talked about French people being less intelligent, all the stereotypes. They were treated badly. (But) they didn't have skin color to deal with. They could change their language and drop their accent and change their names. That allowed them to me more upwardly mobile."
"Piecework" embraces Francophones' historical contributions, however small. Though there is much ado about the Mayflower's pilgrims, the French, among them Samuel de Champlain, were in this region before America was America. Paige's show heightens awareness of this history and how it is told by whom.
"People end up getting lost along the way. We need to keep our ancestors alive as our connection to history."
She has come to accept that she is not French-Canadian, but American.
"That has made it easier for me to live here (in Montreal). I was feeling I wanted to be welcomed. In a way, I wasn't welcomed."
During her research, she didn't find anyone who was 100-percent French.
"I don't think that exists in Quebec anymore," she said. "Especially in the United States, we all are such a mix to a certain extent. We all invent who we are a little bit ethnically or culturally — or we should, rather than let other people tell us what we are. Because we are white it doesn't mean I don't have any cultural or ethnic heritage."
E-mail Robin Caudell at: rcaudell@pressrepublican.com
