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

Given thousands of Haitian migrants entering Canada seeking asylum in recent months, Sean Mills's study of relations between Quebec and Haiti and French Canadians and Haitians from the 1930s to the 1980s could hardly be more timely. A Place in the Sun offers a crucial historical resource for understanding Haitian transnational migrations, Canadian immigration policies and practices related to Haitians, and perceptions of Haiti and responses to Haitian migration by various groups in Quebec.

Mills situates his study in relation to colonial historical precedents at the roots of Quebec-Haitian relations, while offering an engaging and contemporary narrative informed by extensive research including personal accounts gleaned through interviews and oral history archives. The first part of the book focuses on French-Canadian perceptions of Haitians and interventions in Haiti between the 1930s and the 1960s, while the second part examines the participation of Haitian exiles in Quebec society from the 1960s to the 1980s. This structure reflects and highlights the bidirectional nature of relations between French Canadians and Haitians as well as the duality of French Quebecois identity as both colonizer and colonized.

A Place in the Sun explores power relations shaped through histories of colonialism, slavery, and the Haitian revolution and structured around differences of race, language, religion, class, and gender. A central argument of the book is that French Canadians perceived Haiti and Quebec as French sibling colonies, mutually responsible for the promotion of French language, culture, and Catholicism in North America. However, they also perceived this familial relationship in racially hierarchical terms, generating a paternalism towards Haiti and the majority of Haitians that was negotiated through the idea that the Haitian elite of the 1930s had "overcome their Blackness" through mastering Parisian French and French culture. Mills asserts that this representation of Haitians as connected to, but less civilized than, French Canadians was "the ideological foundations of French Canada's modern relationship" with Haiti. Colonial power relations and political-economic exploitation were furthered by French-Canadian missionaries in the country throughout the 1940s and 1950s, while, by mid-century, Haitian indig^niste, noiriste, and Marxist political and literary movements denounced US influence in Haiti and the "francophilia" of the traditional elite.

The second part of A Place in the Sun examines how Haitians positioned themselves "as the ideal francophone immigrants" for Quebec following the Quiet Revolution. Mills highlights the mutual learning and influence between Haitian exiles and Quebec leftists, showing how Haitian intellectuals brought anti-colonial, anti-capitalist critiques of the roles of missionaries and of the Quebec and Canadian capital in Haiti and thus contributed a crucial internationalism to Quebec nationalist political debate. Far from receiving complete acceptance within Quebec society, however, Haitians also faced, and organized against, profound racism at all levels of society. Personal reflections of Haitians in Quebec make this part of the book an especially engaging narrative, anchored and informed by the knowledge and experiences of people who were involved. Mills explores how Haitians developed social, cultural, and political organizations and challenged racial and class assumptions as workers generated political analysis and organized in their communities and work places. Particularly relevant in today's context is Mills's discussion of how Haitians, facing deportation in the late 1970s, mobilized in their own defence, "ultimately affecting both the practice of deportation as well as interpretation of its meaning."

While accounts of Haitian feminist, anti-racist, and labour activism drive the narrative in the second part of the book, the final chapter highlights the persistence of racialized colonial relations concerning gender and sexuality through a brief examination of the career of author Dany Laferriere. While acknowledging the author's contributions to Quebec and Haitian literature, Mills notes that the tremendous success of Laferriere's Comment faire l'amour avec un mgre sans se fatigue (1985) with francophone Quebec audiences relied largely on the author's ability to exploit "a profoundly heteronormative and masculine understanding of Quebec nationalism." Given...