A Place in the Sun: Haiti, Haitians, and the Remaking of Quebec by Sean Mills (review)

In 1986, roughly 6 per cent of all immigrants in Quebec were born in Haiti, and the country ranked fifth on the list of countries of origin of immigrants to Quebec (below the United Kingdom, the United States, France, and Italy). It is no wonder, then, that Haiti has occupied a unique place in Quebec's collective imaginary since the 1940s. With his compelling new work, Sean Mills has written the most comprehensive study of the history of citizens of Haitian descent in Quebec society to date. Notwithstanding his tendency to reduce Quebec to francophone Catholic Quebec, Mills's contribution is original in that he aims to delineate the ongoing dialogue between Haitian Quebecers and the rest of Quebec society in a dynamic and fluid way that sets it apart from past historical accounts of other ethnic or racialized communities (Jews, Portuguese, and Italians, for example). Mills divides his book into two parts of unequal lengths: the first part tries to answer the question, "What has Quebec done to Haiti?" while the second asks, "What has Haiti done to Quebec?"

In the first part (Chapters 1 and 2), Mills shows how Canadian Roman Catholic missionaries, tourists, corporations, and (mainly) federal governmental agencies played a role in imposing an imperialist world order on the Caribbean island. Their involvement and presence on the so-called île noire contributed, intentionally or not, to the perpetuation of neo-colonialism and the consolidation of Duvalier's dictatorship. In the 1930s and 1940s, French-Canadian intellectuals discovered Haiti through the lens of their own ideologies, but their appreciation of the country was also bolstered by a Haitian elite that emphasized its "civilized manners" and Frenchness and downplayed the creole and voodoo elements of Haitian culture. In such a context, French Canadians and Haitians could be considered "brothers," sharing the same motherland, although French Canadians always assumed the status of "older brothers" having to take care of their Haitian "baby brothers." Indeed, the French (from France) attitude toward French Canadians found its perfect parallel at the time in French-Canadian attitudes toward Haitians, demonstrating the extent to which orientalism is a multi-faceted mirror.

In the second part (Chapters 3 to 7), Mills explores the story of Haitian immigrants in Quebec. He analyzes the immigration and refugee crisis in particular, as well as the issue of racism in the taxi industry, concluding with an amusing chapter on writer Dany Laferriere. Not surprisingly, he finds that Haitian immigrants arriving in the 1960s did not encounter insurmountable challenges landing jobs and being accepted in mainstream society. On the one hand, they were few, well-educated, highly skilled, and spoke fluent French, and, on the other, the Quebec economy and public sector were booming. Compared to this cohort, the second wave of Haitian immigrants arrived in greater numbers. They were also poorer, coming from a rural background, less educated, speaking Creole, and, following the 1973 oil crisis, arriving in Quebec at a time of economic downturn. Their difficulties integrating into Quebec were profound and enduring.

However, at every turn, as Mills shows, Quebecers of Haitian origin found support in the larger society, particularly in leftist organizations, and even more notably among left-leaning Catholic groups. Amid the general indifference, if not downright racism and intolerance, of many, the solidarity expressed by those who saw in Haitians the perfect migrants on the grounds that they spoke French and were Catholic cannot be denied ("They're French like us, Catholic like us," one of Mills's citations highlights). At the same time, Haitian-born Quebecers were founding their own organizations, creating their own literature, and, more generally, mobilizing their efforts to foster ethnic and/or racial solidarity while also contesting their imposed marginality. Meanwhile, tensions simmered within the community, notably between emancipated women and men raised in a more traditionally gendered environment.

The approach adopted in A Place...